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| Among the beaches on the French Riviera several are quite dirty |
Finally some good news from the European Union - and Greece!
92.1 % of bathing waters in the European Union now meet the minimum water quality standards set by the Bathing Water Directive. This includes the Serpentine Lake in London, which will host several Olympics events, including the Open Water Marathon Swim and the swimming section of the triathlon.
The results are from the latest annual Bathing Water Report of European Environment Agency (EEA) and the European Commission, which describes water quality in more than 22,000 bathing sites at beaches, rivers and lakes acrossEuropelast year
The report found that 77.1 % of sites had excellent quality, i.e. complying with the most stringent guide values, an improvement of 3.5 percentage points on last year's data. Some 93.1 % of coastal bathing waters were classified as ‘sufficient’, or complying with the less stringent mandatory values – a 1 % increase. Less than 2 % of bathing waters were non-compliant.
Cyprus, Croatia, Malta and Greece had excellent reports on their bathing water sites, all with more than 90 % of bathing water sites meeting the most stringent guide values (excellent quality), and the remainder complying with the mandatory values. At the opposite end of the scale, the Netherlands, Bulgaria, Latvia, Luxemburg and Belgium had relatively low proportions of sites meeting the strict guide values, especially as regards inland waters.
The report also noted that in France, home to 16 percent of bathing sites in the EU, only 2/3 were of excellent quality while 88 percent met the minimum mandatory water quality requirements.
Another challenge for France´s brand new President!
Maybe France - and perhaps also Germany - could use some Greek beach pros to clean up their polluted bathing sites!
With bathing water quality the pressures on samplers and analysts are enormous and there are a number of well-known dodges to get the "right" result.
ReplyDeleteThe results from certain countries have to be viewed in that light.
A K,
ReplyDeleteYou are probably right. But for the sake of Greek tourism (which probably will be even more important for the country after the exit from the euro)let´s hope they are doing a good job in keeping their beaches clean!