EMODnet Human Activities, Environment, Status of Bathing Water

The dataset on the status of bathing waters in the European seas was created in 2015 by Cogea for the European Marine Observation and Data Network (EMODnet). It is based on data from (i) the 'Bathing Water Directive - Status of bathing water, 2022' provided by The European Topic Centre on Water and made available by the European Environment Agency (EEA) for the EU countries, Albania and Switzerland, (ii) the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs of the Environment Agency for the England, (iii) the Gibraltar Environmental Agency, (iv) the Department of Agriculture, Environment, and Rural Affairs for the Northern Ireland, (v) the Scottish Environment Protection Agency for the Scotland, (vi) the Natural Resources Wales Government Sponsored Body. It is available for viewing and download on EMODnet web portal (Human Activities, https://emodnet.ec.europa.eu/en/human-activities). The EU Bathing Water Directive requires Member States to identify popular bathing places in fresh and coastal waters and monitor them for indicators of microbiological pollution (and other substances) throughout the bathing season which runs from May to September. More information are available at https://rod.eionet.europa.eu/obligations/787. The dataset presents information on bathing water identifier and name, county code and name, latitude and longitude of sites, specialized zone type (coastal, lake, river, transitional), link to the national sources website, bathing water quality status (0 - Not classified, 1 - Excellent, 2 - Good, 3 - Good or Sufficient, 3 - Sufficient, 4 - Poor, Closed, Insufficiently Sampled, New), year (1990-2023, where available). Only coastal and transitional bathing waters are shown on the viewer, while the dataset also contains lake and river ones. Geographic coverage: Albania, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom (England, Gibraltar, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales). Classifications were not made for some of the UK sites for the 2020 season due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the sampling programme. Compared with the previous version, the dataset has been updated according to the latest version published by the resource providers in the 2023 and 2024 for the 2023 bathing water season.