Bathing water quality

EU efforts for ensuring clean bathing waters commenced in the 1970s. The 1976 Bathing Water Directive aims at protecting public health and the environment by keeping our coastal and inland bathing waters free from pollution.

Bathing waters can be coastal waters or inland waters (rivers, lakes). To be covered by the Directive including its mandatory quality standards as well as its monitoring and information obligations, bathing must either be explicitly authorised, or not prohibited and traditionally practiced by a large number of people. Swimming pools and waters for therapeutic purposes are not covered.

Quality standards: limits on pollutants (articles 2 to 6 and annex)

To ensure good bathing water quality, the EU has set limits for physical, chemical and microbiological parameters (see annex 1 of the Directive). National authorities must ensure that these limits are not exceeded. They regularly take water samples for analysis throughout the bathing season – generally from April/May to October/November, with some variation between countries. Experience of past years has shown that today the limiting factor for bathing water quality is microbiological pollution, either from waste water or from agricultural run-off. Sampling gets underway two weeks before the bathing season. After that, samples are taken every two weeks. If the water quality gets a good rating for two years in a row, samples are collected less frequently – once a month during the bathing season.

Provisions for exceptional circumstances (article 8)

The rules may be waived in exceptional weather (e.g. flood events) or special geographical conditions, or if substances get into the water as a result of natural processes. Authorities must notify the Commission of any such derogation, explaining the reasons as well as the foreseen duration.

National authorities of Member States undertake sampling and analysis; the sampling starts 2 weeks before the start of the bathing season in the particular country or region. Many countries and region publish their bathing water quality results in regional or national reports, in particular on the Internet.

The collected results of monitoring bathing water quality are sent by Member States to the Commission after the end of the bathing season.

The Commission publishes in May of each year an EU-wide report covering all 27 Member States, both in a paper version and an Internet version. Reports on individual Member States are published on the Internet. From June 2008 on the Bathing Water Atlas will be replaced by interactive maps on the Water Information System for Europe (www.water.europa.eu) which provide users with detailed information on the quality of bathing water in individual bathing areas in the WISE viewer.

For individual questions, please use our "water" mailbox env-water@ec.europa.eu.

The new Bathing Water Directive of 2006

Water is a precious natural resource which we have to protect and manage with care. Whilst the 1976 Bathing Water Directive has been a common European success story by improving the quality of our bathing waters, knowledge and experience in many fields has progressed since the 1970s. This is why the EU - as part of its Sixth Community Environment Action Programme 2002 - 2012 - has revised and updated bathing water quality protection through the new 2006 Bathing Water Directive.

What benefits does the new directive bring?

The new Bathing Water Directive

• is based on scientific knowledge on protecting health and the environment, as well as environmental management experience,
• provides better and earlier information of citizens about quality of their bathing waters,
• moves from simple sampling and monitoring of bathing waters to bathing quality management, and
• is integrated into all other EU measures protecting the quality of all our waters (rivers, lakes, groundwaters and coastal waters) through the Water Framework Directive.

Provides for transparent definitions of terms used in the Directive.

These deal with:

Details related to these provisions are set out in the annexes:

annex I	quality standards for bathing waters
annex II	bathing water quality assessment and classification
annex III	bathing water profiles
annexes IV+V	monitoring and handling of samples

The number of samples for monitoring bathing water quality depends on the length of the bathing season; as a rule the minimum sampling interval is one month.

These articles address information and participation of the public, as well as annual reports by Member States to the Commission and the annual summary report by the Commission. Beyond the 1976 Bathing Water Directive, the new Directive ensures timely information of the public during the bathing season, with an obligation for Member States to disseminate actively and promptly information on bathing water quality.

As is the case for the "old" Directive of 1976, national authorities of Member States undertake sampling and analysis during the bathing season and are required to inform citizens through reports and the Internet. Collected results are sent to the Commission, who is publishing the information on the Internet in reports and through the Water Information System for Europe.

This section provides for implementing rules and future review of the Directive.

In terms of legislation, Member States have an obligation to incorporate the Directive into their national legislation by 24 March 2008.