THE WATER IS ROUGHER IN THE SHALLOW END OF THE SWIMMING POOL BECAUSE THERE ARE MORE PEOPLE
You may or may not have noticed that the water at the deep end of the pool always seems to be less wavey than the shallow end. At the shallow end there are thousands of small wavelets which give the water a
rough appearance yet at the deep end, the water surface seems to be relatively smooth and shiny. In my local pool there is almost a line two thirds of the way along the pool where the water seems to get smoother.
You can even see this effect when there is no "play" in the pool just people swimming lengths who are randomly spaced out (and therefore not in the majority in the shallow end necessarily)>
The depth of the water is the key and in deep water waves travel faster than in slow water. There is a famous wave equation which states:
so.....if the frequency remains constant (eg a swimmer making "bow waves") then if the speed increases (IN DEEPER WATER) the wavelength must also increase (ie the wave gets more stretched out). A longer wave means smoother surface.
At the olympic games in Sydney many new swimming records were broken because the pools were scientifically designed and made deeper than normal to give smoother water which is therefore easier to swim through. (they also designed energy absorbing floats as the lane separators to make the water calmer).
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