The “Drowning Observatory” is a system created by the Portuguese Lifesaving Federation, to better account the drowning deaths in Portugal.

Currently, the world average death from drowning is one death every 1,5 minutes (372,000 per year), but this figure is much higher because it is not being properly accounted.

By better accounting the drowning, it will be possible to better understand the problem and to create prevention strategies for it.

The recording of drownings in this system is carried out by sending links of newspaper reports or images of these, by anyone, to the e-mail observatoriodoafogamento@gmail.com or posted on the facebook of the observatory at www.facebook.com/observatoriodoafogamento.

The accounting of the drownings is updated periodically in the site http://observatoriodoafogamento.blogspot.com

The Portuguese drowning report will be produced annually, which will be used to create prevention strategies and communicate the data to WHO and ILS.

This system follows the indications of the World Health Organization and of the International Lifesaving Federation, to better account the drowning.