EEA: GREECE IN EUROPE’S TOP 3 FOR THE EXCELLENT WATER QUALITY FOR SWIMMING
For four consecutive years, Greece is in Europe’s Top 3 countries for the exceptional quality of its swimming waters, according to the European Bathing Water Quality Report released this week for 2022 by the European Environment Agency (EEA) in cooperation with the European Commission. More specifically, according to the report which assesses where swimmers can find the cleanest bathing sites in Europe this summer, 95 percent of Greece’s bathing water was found to be “excellent”, placing the country third among 29 countries including sites in all EU member states, Albania and Switzerland. Quality grades awarded are “excellent”, “good”, “sufficient”, or “poor” Based on the monitoring results, the majority of exceptional bathing waters in 2022 were found in Cyprus which ranked number 1, followed by Austria, Greece and Croatia.
On the downside, bathing water quality in Malta, Bulgaria, Romania, Slovenia and Luxembourg met at least the minimum standard of sufficient quality. The annual report monitored 21,973 bathing sites in Europe with data and other information regarding bathing water management reported to the EEA.
A total of 1,682 bathing sites were assessed in Greece last year, of which 1,624 were found to be of excellent quality, 17 “good”, and four “sufficient”. There were no sites classified as “poor”.
In the last four years, Greece has been in the lead in terms of swimming water quality garnering an “excellent” grade for 95.7 percent of its bathing sites in 2019, 97.1 percent in 2020, 95.8 percent in 2021, and 96.6 percent in 2022. Meanwhile, across Europe, the majority of bathing water sites met the EU’s “excellent” water quality standards in 2022.