Europe’s inland and coastal waters have become cleaner and nations such as heavily-indebted Greece and Cyprus boast some of the most pristine bathing spots, according to this year’s EU report on water quality.
Compiled annually by the European Environment Agency, the latest report on bathing waters finds six nations rated “excellent”: Croatia, Cyprus, Germany, Greece, Luxembourg, and Malta.
The three nations with the highest number of poor sites were France and Spain (3 per cent of sites in both) and Italy (1.9 per cent). In percentage terms, the worst countries were Estonia (6 per cent), Ireland and the Netherlands (both around 5 per cent).
Some 95 per cent of sites surveyed met minimum standards in the report for 2014, an increase of 0.5 percentage points compared with 2013.
Overall the report monitored 21,000 inland and coastal bathing waters across the European Union and in EU neighbours Albania and Switzerland.
Less than 2 per cent were rated as having poor bathing water quality, associated with pollution from sewage or agricultural waste, which could cause illness if people swim in it.
A remaining 3 per cent were not classified because of insufficient data.
While Europe’s waters have become cleaner, the overall state of nature is a major challenge.
Source: Reuters