EEA geospatial data catalogue
Bathing Water Directive - Status of bathing water, 2024 v.1.0
The purpose of the EU Bathing Water Directive (Directive 2006/7/EC) (BWD) is to protect human health and the environment while ensuring safe bathing water quality through provisions for monitoring, classification and management of bathing water quality, as well as for public information on such quality.
The BWD requires Member States to annually identify all bathing waters (inland, transitional and coastal) and define the length of the bathing season. Member States are also requested to monitor the concentration in water of E. coli and intestinal enterococci. These are bacteria used as important indicators of faecal contamination, which poses a risk to human health due to the potential presence of pathogens. Based on the monitoring results for these bacteria, bathing waters are classified into four quality categories: excellent, good, sufficient, or poor.
At least four water samples per bathing water need to be collected and analysed — one taken before the bathing season and the other (at least) three during it — with no more than one month passing between each sample collection.
The BWD classification scheme aims to provide a meaningful picture of bathing water quality over the long term.
Simple
Identification info
- Date (Creation)
- 2025-06-01
- Date (Publication)
- 2025-06-19
- Edition
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01.00
- Citation identifier
- eea_t_bathing-water-status_p_1990-2024_v01_r00
- Citation identifier
- DAT-17-en
Identifier
- Point of contact
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Organisation Individual Electronic mail address Website Role European Environment Agency
Point of contact
- Topic category
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- Environment
Extent
Temporal extent
- Time period
- 1990-01-01 2024-12-31
Resource constraints
- Use constraints
- Other restrictions
- Other constraints
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License CC-BY 4.0 ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Copyright holder: Directorate-General for Environment (DG ENV), European Environment Agency (EEA).
Associated resource
- Association Type
- Cross reference
- Language
- English
- Additional Information
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The data set presents the latest information as reported by the Member States for the 2024 bathing season, as well as some historical data since 1990.
Distribution Information
- Distribution format
-
-
Microsoft Excel (.xls, .xlsx)
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- Distributor contact
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Organisation Individual Electronic mail address Website Role EEA
eea.europa.eu
- OnLine resource
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https://sdi.eea.europa.eu/webdav/datastore/public/eea_t_bathing-water-status_p_1990-2024_v01_r00
- OnLine resource
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Direct download
- OnLine resource
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State of bathing waters in 2024
Interactive map
- OnLine resource
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Bathing waters with excellent water quality in Europe
EEA Indicator
Resource lineage
- Statement
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Shortly before the start of and during the bathing season, competent authorities designated by MS take bathing water samples and analyse them for the types of bacteria associated with microbiological health risk and indicating pollution from e.g. sewage and livestock breeding. Polluted water can have impacts on human health, causing stomach upsets and diarrhoea if swallowed. Infections of the ears, eyes and upper respiratory tract are also possible and more serious infectious diseases can occasionally be contracted. Based on the levels of bacteria detected, bathing water quality is then classified as ‘excellent’, ‘good’, ‘sufficient’ or ‘poor’.
Member States establish their respective monitoring calendars, which must follow the provisions of Annex IV to the Bathing Water Directive:
- One sample is to be taken shortly before the start of the bathing season; no fewer than four samples (including the pre-season sample) are to be taken and analysed per bathing season; only three samples need be taken and analysed per bathing season in the case of a bathing water that either has a bathing season not exceeding eight weeks or is situated in a region subject to special geographical constraints.
- Sampling dates are to be distributed throughout the bathing season, with the interval between sampling dates never exceeding one month.
- Hierarchy level
- Dataset
Metadata
- Metadata identifier
- 30e5d599-6bc1-408d-9e65-a10e433b81ef
- Language
- English
- Character encoding
- UTF8
- Contact
-
Organisation Individual Electronic mail address Website Role European Environment Agency
Point of contact
Type of resource
- Resource type
- Non geographic dataset
- Name
-
Tabular dataset
- Metadata linkage
-
https://sdi.eea.europa.eu/catalogue/srv/api/records/30e5d599-6bc1-408d-9e65-a10e433b81ef
- Date info (Creation)
- 2025-06-18T13:52:52.279874Z
- Date info (Revision)
- 2025-11-26T13:49:05.40512Z
Metadata standard
- Title
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ISO 19115/19139
- Edition
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1.0
)