Is Your Swimming Water Really Safe? What EU Regulations Can (and Can't) Tell Us

2 days ago

6 min read

In the first blog in this three-part series, we looked at the rise in urban and wild swimming, the idea that people are thinking beyond their local beach for recreation and exploring local rivers, canals and docks: cities are becoming swimmable. Water quality in coastal areas has also come under increasing scrutiny in recent years from environmental groups and recreational users, highlighting the lack of transparency and reporting around pollution outbreaks.

Here, we explore how Europe has begun tackling water quality issues through legislation.

People swimming in an urban river, highlighting the importance of bathing water quality monitoring.

How often do member states monitor bathing water?

Currently, Member States must monitor bathing waters every year, in line with the EU Bathing Water Directive, with at least four samples taken during every bathing season, ‘except where the season is very short or where there are special geographic constraints’.

One sample must be taken before the ‘season’ starts, with the other three taken during the season, but with no more than a month between samples.

Bathing water is classified as one of four levels:

Excellent: i.e. quality is high, with minimal pollution risks.
Good: i.e. quality is acceptable, but with some potential pollution risks.
Sufficient: i.e. quality is acceptable, but with higher pollution risks than the Good classification.
Poor: i.e. there are significant pollution risks, requiring immediate attention.

These classifications are based on four years of results – the current season and the preceding seasons.

Latest EU bathing quality data

According to the EU’s latest figures, 85% of coastal bathing waters were classified as excellent in 2025. Inland bathing waters fared less well, with 78% achieving excellence. However, river bathing water remains a partial blind spot in the data, as we will see below.

EU Bathing Water Directive

Bathing water quality has been on the political agenda in Europe since the 1970s, when rules were first introduced to tackle the cleanliness of coastal and inland bathing waters. These rules were later simplified and codified in the 2006 Bathing Water Directive, which aimed to: ‘preserve, protect and improve the quality of the environment and to protect human health by complementing Directive 2000/60/EC (‘the Water Framework Directive’). The Directive applies to any section of surface, inland or coastal waters where the relevant authority expects a large number of people to bathe’.

Its overall objective was to ensure that anyone entering EU bathing waters benefitted from the same level of monitoring and protection, regardless of which part of the Union they lived in or were visiting.

Approximately 22,000 bathing sites are monitored for ‘microbiological parameters’ relating to E.coli and enterococci. By 2021, the EU concluded it needed to take a fresh look at the directive to determine whether it needed updating to bring it in line with other regulations.

Following a period of public consultation, which received 51 unique responses from a diverse group of interested parties, an EU-commissioned review found that:

“The Directive is effective in safeguarding EU bathers’ health in the short term, and that its implementation has led to improvements in bathing water quality…”

Despite this healthy prognosis, the review acknowledged that ‘there is still scope to increase both health and environmental protection in European bathing waters…’

It acknowledged that only two specific bacteria were monitored and that results were based on a restricted monitoring period during the ‘bathing season’.

Review responses: what they revealed

A high percentage of respondents wanted more frequent, year-round testing, with results made public as soon as possible, to include activities taking place outside the ‘traditional’ bathing season. Many mentioned the need for modernisation and the use of new technologies for easier detection and reporting of pollution events.

Ultimately, testing should help bathing water users make informed choices of when and where they swim at any given time.

Gaps in data become public health concerns

It is encouraging that the EU’s bathing waters are rated so highly, but does the data really offer the best evidence for safe waters? Well, yes and no.

Yes, because regular testing over extended periods provides an overview of general water health.

No, because, as revealed by responses to the Directive review, there is a feeling that the testing and monitoring regime has not kept pace with the changing realities experienced by recreational water users.

Wild swimming has been experiencing a boom, with people around the world sharing spots along rivers and canals that are considered ‘safe’. However, one of the drawbacks of the Directive is that rivers are under-represented in the list of officially designated bathing waters. Rivers make up under 6% of the dataset, and only 47% have achieved excellence.

As we saw in the previous blog, the swimmable cities movement is also shining a spotlight on water quality in rivers, docks and harbour areas. And many cities are rising to the challenge, with Paris’ clean-up ahead of the Olympics in 2024 being one of the best examples of how this can be achieved.

Communication is also an issue, as the review notes: ‘Information on bathing water quality does reach the EU public, broadly speaking, but there is scope for modernising and improving the information provided’.

This point is touched upon again when considering improvements that can be made through the use of digital technology: ‘The Directive does not draw on the full potential of digitalisation in terms of improved and simplified monitoring and reporting, but also enhanced predictions of water quality events ensuring timely and user-friendly information is available for the public.’

These data gaps highlight the challenges inherent in testing bathing waters. Testing is currently regular, but infrequent given how quickly water quality can change. Analysis can be slow, with laboratory tests taking days to produce credible results.

Frequent monitoring and rapid detection enhance water resilience

Monitoring of bathing waters reveals not only local conditions but also potential problems ‘upstream’.

In June 2025, the European Commission adopted its Water Resilience Strategy, with three key objectives: strengthening governance, tightening legislation and improving integrated water management. It is easy to see how the Bathing Water Directive fits into this wider strategy, and how it can be improved by taking on board the responses to its recent review: year-round testing, more frequent testing, better use of digital technologies, and more frequent and clearer communication of threats.

Technologies like bNovate’s BactoSense ID can meet all these criteria: delivering reliable results in under 60 minutes. Designed to complement regulatory testing, it provides continuous operational visibility between laboratory samples, helping water professionals detect change, verify treatment performance and make better-informed decisions.

It has the benefit of sitting within a family of tools that all work to monitor and detect bacteria across a wide water network, from coastal waters to treatment plants, helping to build a true picture of potential threats. The results can also be shared rapidly, which could feed into public dashboards that reveal a more accurate picture of local water quality and how it changes.

Not only can this keep local authorities informed of emerging pollution events, it also offers a means of quality assurance, alerting authorities to when a health risk has passed, potentially leading to bathing site re-opening sooner than it might otherwise have been able.

Community groups and recreational users have helped shine a light on the state of our bathing waters; scarcity and extreme weather events have helped drive legislation to make better use of the water we have and to help protect the environment. Together, they are driving a need for new technologies and reporting processes, which we will explore further in the third and final blog in this series.

Frequently Asked Questions

How often is bathing water tested in Europe?

Under the EU Bathing Water Directive, designated bathing waters must be sampled at least four times per bathing season, with some exceptions. Water quality is classified as excellent, good, sufficient or poor based on results collected over four years. However, conditions can change significantly between samples.

Does an excellent bathing water rating mean the water is always safe to swim in?

Not necessarily. An excellent classification reflects water quality over several bathing seasons, rather than conditions on a specific day. Heavy rainfall, pollution events or wastewater discharges can cause bacterial levels to change rapidly, potentially creating risks between scheduled tests.

How can continuous bacterial monitoring improve bathing water safety?

Continuous monitoring helps water operators identify changes in bacterial levels between laboratory tests. Technologies such as BactoSense ID automatically monitor specific bacteria, including coliforms, enterococci and E.coli, with results in under 60 minutes. This provides earlier insight into potential contamination and supports faster, better-informed decisions while complementing regulatory testing.