Safe and swimmable waters in 96% of EU countries

'The quality of bathing water on beaches across Europe has improved significantly over the past decades, largely due to the policies and actions of EU countries,' the document says. 'The Bathing Water Directive requires systematic bacteriological monitoring of bathing water and countries have invested heavily in urban waste water treatment plants.

European bathing waters are much safer thanks to these improvements in wastewater treatment. 'Escherichia coli bacteria and intestinal enterococci,' it goes on to say, 'can pollute our bathing water and pose a risk to human health due to the potential presence of pathogens. Usually, these bacteria originate from untreated sewage or manure that ends up in bathing water, for example, following heavy rainfall'.

In this context, however, one should not let one's guard down. "Although most of Europe's bathing waters are in very good condition, pollution of surface and groundwater remains significant and may be exacerbated by climate change," the document continues. Improving water resilience for people and the environment in the coming years will be crucial.

Then there is the Italian case, where the situation seems to be in line with the European picture. This is described by the official data of the National Environmental Protection System composed of Ispra with the regional environmental protection agencies.

More specifically, more than 5 thousand kilometres of coastline, equal to 95.7% of the monitored coastline, 'fall into the excellent quality class'. According to the most recent data released by the Snpa, 5.1 thousand kilometres of coastline are in the 'excellent' quality class, "another 152 km - 2.8% of the total - in the 'good' quality class, while only 31 km (0.6%) are in the 'sufficient' class and 35 (0.7%) in the 'poor' class".

All the regions "present an overall very high quality of coastal bathing water, with percentages of coastline in the "excellent" or "good" class always above 90% (the differences on these values are also attributable to the specific territorial characteristics of each region)". The highest percentages of 'excellent' coastline are found in Apulia with a percentage of 99.7%, Friuli-Venezia Giulia with 99.6%, and Sardinia with 98.7%. "In absolute terms, the regions with the most kilometres of 'excellent' quality coastline," emerges the Snpa report, "are Sardinia with 1.391 thousand kilometres, Puglia with 880 kilometres, and Calabria with 621 kilometres. "The overall satisfactory quality of Italian coastal bathing waters is therefore confirmed once again this year. The percentage of coastline with water of 'excellent' quality was 95.5% in 2023, 95.6% in 2024, and 95.7% this year; that of 'poor' quality was 0.8% in both 2023 and 2024 and 0.7% this year.

"The analyses carried out by the Environmental Agencies' laboratories are based on two microbiological parameters, the concentrations of Escherichia coli and intestinal enterococci," the Snpa document specifies. "During the 2024 bathing season (from April to September), Snpa technicians took more than 22,000 samples of sea water and about 2,000 samples of water from rivers and lakes, for a total of more than 24,000 samples. The points where Snpa carries out monitoring are 4,028 in the sea and 371 in lakes and rivers'.

In addition to the institutional activity carried out by public agencies and structures, there is also the activity carried out by voluntary and environmental organisations, which not only monitor the state of the water and the environment, but also check for malfunctions in the purification and discharge of waste into the sea.

The country has 260 bathing sites officially recognised as 'EU bathing waters', regularly monitored according to uniform European criteria, including bacteriological indicators, visibility and temperature. Monitoring is carried out by district authorities, with the support of the Agency for Health and Food Safety (AGES), which also maintains a national database in cooperation with the Ministry of Health. In 2024, 95.8% of the analysed lakes and rivers reached 'excellent quality' and no water bodies with chronic criticality were reported, only occasional temporary problems.

During the 2025 bathing season, 87.6 per cent of the monitored areas were classified as 'excellent' and 95.9 per cent met the minimum EU standards. The monitoring system is coordinated by the Ministry of Health, while the autonomous communities and municipalities take periodic samples and transmit the data to the national system. However, the 'Black Flags 2025' report by the organisation Ecologistas en Acción reported 48 beaches with environmental criticalities, mainly related to coastal urbanisation, discharges and deficiencies in purification systems, pollution from waste and plastics, poorly managed port works and coordination problems between local, regional and national authorities, which delay or block restoration work.

*This article is part of the European collaborative journalism project "Pulse".