The quality of bathing water in Europ has improved significantly over the past 40 years. This is shown in a report published by the European Environment Agency (EEA) and the European Commission with the values for 2015. In over 21,000 coastal and inland bathing areas in the EU, Switzerland and Albania, water samples were taken and checked for faecal contamination and animal excrement.
"Our assessment shows that the water quality has increased significantly over the years. More and more bathing waters not only meet the minimum requirements, but also meet the highest standards. In some cities, people can even enjoy a swim in public harbor swimming pools," says Hans Bruyninckx, Executive Director the EEA.
As the official table shows, Germany is one of the front runners when it comes to the water quality of its seaside resorts. Luxembourg ranks first
Water quality is particularly high in Luxembourg, Cyprus, Malta, Greece, Croatia, Italy, Germany and Austria. Over 90 percent of the samples were given the grade "excellent".
In absolute terms, Italy is also one of the EU member states with the highest number of bathing areas with poor water quality. Insufficient values were measured in 95 locations there and also in France. There were 58 places in Spain. The values in the non-EU member state Albania are particularly negative. Almost 40 percent of all bathing water there was classified as polluted.
The authorities attribute the overall positive balance to the established EU legislation and years of investment in the water infrastructure. 96 percent of all seaside resorts now meet the minimum requirements. Larger cities such as Blackpool, Copenhagen or Munich benefit above all from improved sewer systems.
In 1991 only 56 percent of European seaside resorts met the highest standards. Since then, the proportion has increased to 87 percent in the approximately 9,600 bodies of water that are examined annually. For the present report, for the first time, all EU member states monitored their bathing areas in accordance with the new bathing water directive from 2006. The first such directive was issued 40 years ago.
You can find the interactive table with the individual values here.
You can access the interactive map here to display the values for any bathing resort.
With the interactive map of the European Environment Agency, the water quality can be determined for every place in Europe