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Interactive map on state of bathing waters in Europe

August 5, 2019 | Karin Stäheli

The efforts for clean water are having an effect: According to the European Environment Agency, over 85 percent of bathing sites in European waters have excellent water quality.

The European Environment Agency provides an online interactive map of bathing water quality in European countries (including Switzerland and Albania), where the classification of bathing water can be viewed. Depending on the zoom factor, the annual values of more than 22,000 measuring stationstypo3/ are displayed as values for the entire country or individual bathing waters.

The EU Bathing Water Directive requires Member States to identify popular bathing sites in fresh and coastal waters and monitor them for microbiological pollution indicators during the bathing season (May to September). The assessment is based on two microbiological parameters: intestinal enterococci and Escherichia coli. The quality of bathing water is classified as "excellent", "good", "sufficient" or "poor", depending on the level of faecal bacteria detected.

There are also other offers for Switzerland: The bathing water quality of the Swiss bathing sites and many other geodata can be displayed on map.geo.admin.chtypo3/. Meteolakes.chtypo3/ displays the water temperatures of four Swiss lakes in high temporal resolution and for different water depths.