Raising water safety awareness

Countless and needless water-related accidents occur in the rivers and seas around the UK every year. Many people are not aware of the hidden dangers in many popular, and often even familiar, locations. With greater public awareness of potentially dangerous locations and conditions, accidents can be prevented and lives saved.

The Water Safetymap is a project launched by River and Sea Sense, an organisation that works to increase awareness through wider and more relevant water safety education. Designed to appeal to young people, in particular, the project uses mobile technologies to warn users of potential dangers – and, in turn, encourage them to warn others too.

Great depths of information

Safetymap sets out to reduce the number of water accidents, especially among young people, by using mobile technologies to allow the public to view details of previous incidents in a particular location. By presenting them with the maximum available evidence, it enables users to make informed decisions about the safety of their activities in the area.

The mobile tools delivered through the Safetymap project encourage exploration of previous incidents in an area and allow users to link through to further educational resources. Users are able to identify geographic clusters of incidents and analyse data provided across various age ranges, activities and accident outcomes – everything from ‘minor’ through ‘near miss’ to ‘fatal’ – so they are empowered to make better decisions.

Sophisticated social media tools

The tools that Safetymap offers are designed to particularly appeal to young people. It includes a website, mobile phone app, social networks, signs with bar codes that can be scanned and an online mapping and alert system.

Alongside a general emphasis on education and raising awareness of potential dangers, Safetymap has a section where it is possible for users to generate a printable sign carrying warnings and safety information. It also enables the public to submit reports of incidents, allowing the information to be as up-to-date as possible.