Bathing water quality in European countries in the 2019 season (EU countries, Albania, and Switzerland

The assessment was done under the provisions of Annex I and Annex II of the Directive and based on a set of adequate number of samples of E. coli and intestinal enterococci per assessment period – the last four bathing seasons. The monitoring requirements are set in Annex IV of the Directive. For newly identified sites or sites where management measures to improve water quality were implemented, the assessment period might be shorter than four years. Bathing water sites for which quality assessment is not possible are classified as either: ’not enough samples’ (not enough samples were provided for the 2019 season or throughout the whole assessment period); ‘new bathing waters’ (classification not possible yet because bathing water is newly identified and a complete set of samples is not yet available); ‘bathing waters with changes’ (classification is not possible yet after changes affecting bathing water quality were implemented). In Poland, 419 out of 606 (70 %) of bathing waters were not classified. The majority of them were newly identified and do not have complete sets of samples yet.