The XI ICSPS Consensus Document on Swimming Pools and Spas: The Athens 2025 Charter on Recreational Waters

Swimming and bathing environments play a crucial role in promoting health, well-being, and social inclusion. The recreational use of water bodies for play and leisure activities presents a unique opportunity for interdisciplinary water research, enabling diverse approaches ranging from chemistry and microbiology to environmental science and public health. This consensus document, developed during the XI International Conference on Swimming Pools and Spas (ICSPS, Athens 2025), highlights shared priorities for safeguarding human and environmental health in aquatic settings. Key objectives include preventing drowning, health risks, and injuries through appropriate design, effective operation, and hygienic behavior. Microbiological quality monitoring is a fundamental requirement for maintaining safety standards and must be complemented by rigorous control of chemical parameters to ensure overall integrity. The document emphasizes the need to reduce chemical use, energy consumption, and water waste while ensuring safety and comfort for users and workers. Addressing sustainability while responding to the challenges posed by climate change and technological innovation represents a key target. The XI ICSPS Consensus Document strongly advocates for a European Directive or International Regulation that provides minimum quality requirements to protect all European citizens’ public health and environment, while embracing a broader global perspective of sustainability and equity for access to waters for recreational uses. This focus is particularly relevant in the European context, where most water-related sectors are already regulated for the protection of public health, yet recreational pools and spas—despite their major socio-economic relevance and central role in tourism—remain without a harmonized framework. Addressing this gap is essential to support safe mobility, responsible leisure, and robust public health protection for all citizens. Harmonized requirements, continuous education of professionals, and innovation through digital engineering tools and artificial intelligence are essential to achieve resilient, safe, and eco-sustainable aquatic facilities. Users’ education is also recognized as a key task for pool management and competent authorities, fostering hygienic behavior, accident prevention, and social responsibility. At any age, swimming pools and spas represent an essential tool in health promotion, encompassing social, mental, and physical wellness, and supporting longevity through social inclusion and adapted physical activity. The international scientific community who conduct research on swimming pools and spas is quite specialized and multidisciplinary but rather narrow, numbering roughly 200 research groups worldwide. The ICSPS network supports progress in research and innovation by promoting effective management, safety, and quality, while also fostering a culture of awareness and responsibility. These advancements strongly advocate for the development of harmonized international policies to ensure consistent standards and sustainable protection across recreational waters in Europe and worldwide.