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 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.