{"id":544466,"date":"2026-08-27T01:24:32","date_gmt":"2026-08-26T23:24:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dev.phytocontrol.com\/uncategorized\/quality-of-european-bathing-water-in-2021\/"},"modified":"2026-08-27T01:24:33","modified_gmt":"2026-08-26T23:24:33","slug":"quality-of-european-bathing-water-in-2021","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dev.phytocontrol.com\/en\/regulatory-watch\/quality-of-european-bathing-water-in-2021\/","title":{"rendered":"Quality of European bathing water in 2021"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In early June, the European Environment Agency (EEA) published <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eea.europa.eu\/publications\/bathing-water-quality-in-2021\/european-bathing-water-quality-in-2021\">its report on the quality of European bathing water for 2021<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">During the bathing season, local authorities collect water samples from listed bathing sites, which are analysed for <em>E. coli<\/em> and intestinal enterococci.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Depending on the levels detected, bathing water is classified into <strong>4 categories<\/strong>:<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;Excellent quality&#8221;, &#8220;Good quality&#8221;, &#8220;Sufficient quality&#8221; or &#8220;Poor quality&#8221;.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">During the 2021 bathing season, <strong>21,859 bathing waters<\/strong> (coastal and inland waters) were monitored.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Under the Bathing Water Directive, the aim is for all bathing sites to be classified as at least sufficient quality.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In 2021, across the EU:<\/p>\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>95.2%<\/strong> of bathing sites met the minimum requirements for <strong>&#8220;sufficient&#8221; quality<\/strong> (compared with 92.6% in 2020).<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>84.7%<\/strong> met the stricter standards set by the Bathing Water Directive corresponding to <strong>&#8220;excellent&#8221; quality<\/strong> (compared with 82.18% in 2020).<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>1.5%<\/strong> of sites were classified as <strong>&#8220;poor&#8221; quality<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">2021 results for France:<\/p>\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>94.2%<\/strong> of sites were of <strong>&#8220;sufficient&#8221; quality<\/strong>, of which <strong>75.7%<\/strong> were of <strong>&#8220;excellent&#8221; quality<\/strong> (compared with 95.1% and 77.7% respectively the previous year).<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>3%<\/strong> were of <strong>&#8220;poor&#8221; quality<\/strong> (compared with 2.3% in 2020).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Your Phytocontrol laboratory is accredited for testing intestinal enterococci and <em>Escherichia coli<\/em> in fresh water, wastewater and saline and brackish water according to standards NF EN ISO 7899-1 and NF EN ISO 9308-3. Details of our scope of accreditation No 1-6066 are available on the COFRAC website.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Need technical, regulatory or pricing information? Our customer service is available from 8am to 7pm, Monday to Friday, at <a href=\"tel:+33800900775\">+33 800 900 775<\/a> or <a href=\"mailto:service-clients@phytocontrol.com\">service-clients@phytocontrol.com<\/a><\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And to stay up to date with Phytocontrol news, join us on our <a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/company\/9369065\/\">LinkedIn<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/laboratoirePHYTOCONTROL\">Facebook<\/a> pages!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In early June, the European Environment Agency (EEA) published its report on the quality of&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":17504,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[181],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-544466","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-regulatory-watch"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v28.4 (Yoast SEO v28.5) - 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