Quality of bathing water 1992

Summary:

The 1992 bathing season marks the publication of the 10th report on the quality of bathing water — an anniversary and, in a way, an appropriate time to take stock. Directive 76/160/EEC was adopted by the Council on 8 December 1975 in order to protect the environment and public health. However, under Article 4 of the Directive, it was not until 1985 that all the bathing areas identified by the Member States (which are waters attracting large numbers of bathers) were required to fulfil the obligations imposed by the Directive.

It must be stated that in 1992 this objective still has not been achieved. Throughout the Community there are still 3165 bathing areas (19%) which do not yet meet the standards set by the Directive. Nevertheless, enormous progress has been made, both in terms of the large increase in the number of bathing areas identified and of the improvement in bathing water quality.

The annual report published by the Commission is intended to inform the public of the quality of bathing water throughout the European Community on the basis of a summary of the results supplied by the Member States. In order to provide objective and comparable information, the conformity of bathing areas is assessed against the values given in the Annex to Directive 76/160/EEC.