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State of bathing water
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Heading for your favorite beach? Is the bathing water clean? Europeans have a huge diversity of beautiful beaches and bathing areas at their disposal and many will be looking forward to long summer days cooling down by the water. The quality of the bathing water at your favorite beach or holiday destination can be a key factor in deciding where to go.
Quality of bathing water - 2008 bathing season
To allow Europeans to make an informed choice on which beach to choose, an annual report on the quality of coastal and freshwater bathing areas, as reported by EU Member States is prepared. This year the report has been prepared by the European Environment Agency (EEA) in cooperation with the European Commission DG Environment. The report assesses the bathing water quality in all 27 EU Member States in the 2008 bathing water season and thereby gives an indication of the areas where the quality of bathing is expected to be good this year.
EEA report - Quality of bathing water - 2008 bathing seasonThe EU summary report is based on bathing water data available up to 1 May 2009. |
Details on all Member States bathing waters for the 2008
season can be found in the national bathing water
reports:
The country reports are based on bathing water data available 1. May 2009.
Bathing water quality interactive maps and data
We all want to know the quality of 'our' local bathing area, beach or lake, and whether it conforms to EU standards. Below you will find a data and map viewer that will allow you to view on-line the quality of the bathing water in the more than 21 000 coastal beaches and freshwater bathing waters across Europe. In addition, the Eye-on-Earth application makes it possible to follow the water quality during the 2009 season and make your own comments on the quality of the beach.
You can also check the bathing water quality on an interactive map, view the data for a selected country or region and make comparisons with previous years. The data can also be visualised in geospatial mapping programs such as Microsoft Live and Google Earth maps.
Data viewer
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Use WISE Bathing Water Quality data viewer for a quick check on locations and statistics on the quality of coastal and freshwater bathing waters.You can search by country, region, province and bathing water and see bathing waters in Microsoft Live maps or Google Earth. You can also explore how bathing waters have changed in recent years.
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Eye on Earth - Water Watch
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The bathing water data also form the basis of the environmental information portal 'Eye-on-Earth' - a collaborative effort between the EEA and Microsoft. This application allows users to zoom in on a given section of the coast, riverbank or lake, both in street map or – where available - bird’s eye viewing formats. A 'traffic-light' evaluation (red, amber, green) of the bathing water quality, based on the official bathing water data, is put alongside ratings made by people who have visited the bathing site, including any comments users wish to make. The Eye-on-Earth bathing application will be updated with information on near-real-time bathing water quality from volunteer countries during the 2009 bathing water season. |
Map viewer
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By using the WISE map viewer you can check the bathing water quality on an interactive map. It also documents how bathing waters have changedthroughout Europe in recent years and provides a full summary of Europe’s bathing water quality in 2008.
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Green tips
The European Environment Agency (EEA) is an agency of the European Union.