Occupational health and safety for water-related outdoor work: fact sheet

In water-relat­ed out­door work, occu­pa­tion­al safe­ty is con­front­ed with a num­ber of influ­enc­ing fac­tors that are not found in this com­bi­na­tion in oth­er areas of work. These include, in par­tic­u­lar, work­ing alone, work­ing at chang­ing work sites, work­ing under high­ly vari­able con­di­tions (for exam­ple, weath­er, local con­di­tions) and, of course, work­ing on, in and on water bod­ies. In addi­tion, many activ­i­ties are car­ried out as con­tract work by small com­pa­nies or even by indi­vid­u­als who gen­er­al­ly do not have a dis­tinc­tive spe­cial­ist occu­pa­tion­al safe­ty and health infrastructure.

The DWA‑M 630 Code of Prac­tice is intend­ed to sup­port those involved in water-relat­ed out­door work in their var­i­ous roles as employ­er, employ­ee, client or con­trac­tor in cre­at­ing safe and healthy work­ing con­di­tions and the asso­ci­at­ed tasks, and to point out pos­si­ble haz­ards as well as pro­tec­tive mea­sures. It serves as ori­en­ta­tion and assis­tance by describ­ing typ­i­cal activ­i­ties and haz­ards in this field of work and point­ing out pos­si­ble solu­tions. To this end, the leaflet cov­ers the fol­low­ing points: Gen­er­al Require­ments, The Way to the Job Site and Back, Work­ing on, in, and on Waters, Activ­i­ties with Haz­ardous Mate­ri­als, Haz­ardous Con­di­tions, Last Minute Risk Assess­ment, and Per­son­al Pro­tec­tive Equip­ment (PPE). How­ev­er, it is not a sub­sti­tute for statu­to­ry or oth­er required reg­u­la­tions or for risk assessment.

The focus here is on describ­ing the haz­ards and pro­tec­tive mea­sures that may be encoun­tered dur­ing water-relat­ed field work. Sam­ple exam­ples and check­lists are pro­vid­ed to assist the user in imple­ment­ing occu­pa­tion­al health and safe­ty for these activ­i­ties. In many respects, the spe­cial con­di­tions of water-relat­ed out­door work are tak­en into account. There­fore, in addi­tion to the require­ments for employ­ers and employ­ees, the leaflet also address­es the role and oblig­a­tions of clients and contractors.

Occu­pa­tion­al health and safe­ty per se requires an inter­dis­ci­pli­nary approach. Accord­ing­ly, the work­ing group is made up of experts from var­i­ous dis­ci­plines. The pro­cess­ing of the leaflet togeth­er with the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Lim­nolo­gie e. V. (Ger­man Soci­ety for Lim­nol­o­gy). (DGL) under­lines the inter­dis­ci­pli­nary char­ac­ter of the work­ing group. The work was coor­di­nat­ed by the Fed­er­al Office of the DWA.