Interactive Beach Water Quality Dashboard

MDPH's Interactive Beaches Dashboard provides water quality testing results for the current beach season. It will tell you which beaches are open or closed. If a beach is closed, do not swim or enter the water at that location to avoid risk of illness.

Interactive data dashboard

The dashboard is updated hourly between 8am-5pm every day (including weekends) during the beach season.

Note: Most beaches in Massachusetts open for the season on Memorial Day weekend. Contact the local municipality to see when your town’s beaches open for the season.

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Using the Dashboard

There are three different views which can be accessed using the three buttons at the top of each page of the Dashboard.

1. See All Closures
2. See Test Results
3. See All Beaches (Map)

To navigate to a view, click on its button at the top of the Dashboard. A button that is colored blue indicates that you are on that view.

See Test Results

1. Under Select Town, choose a town. Beaches in the selected town will appear in the drop-down menu for the Select Beach section.
2. Under Select Beach, choose a beach. Open beach locations will be labeled as Open and closed beach locations will be labeled as Closed in the Beach List panel. Bacterial testing results for the selected beach will be displayed in the upper right panel. The lower right panel displays the geometric mean of the bacterial sample results for the selected beach. Click on the arrow in the top right corner on any of these panels to download the data.

See All Beaches (Map)

This section displays an interactive map of all beaches in Massachusetts, represented as colored dots on the map. Hovering over a dot on the map will display the name, town, closure status, and water type (marine or freshwater) for that beach. The color of the beach dot corresponds with the current status of the beach:

• GREEN = Open
• RED = Closed for swimming
• ORANGE = Partially closed
• BLACK = Off-season

To select a beach using town and beach lists:

1. Select a town from the Town section.
2. Select the name of a beach from the Beach section. The chosen beach will be highlighted on the map and its status will be shown in the map legend.

To download the information displayed on the map, click on the arrow in the top right corner.

Additional Resources

• MDPH Bathing Beach Resources
• Frequently asked questions about beach water quality
• See previous years’ beach water quality

Who can I contact if I have more questions?

Please contact the Bureau of Environmental Health at [phone].