Bulgaria ranks second in EU’s annual bathing waters survey
Bulgaria has further improved its score in the European Environment Agency (EEA) annual report on the quality of bathing waters in the EU, ranking second after further improving on last year’s record high number of bathing water sites meeting EEA’s “excellent quality” standards.
The latest report, based on samples taken throughout 2024 and released on June 20, put the number of “excellent quality” sites in Bulgaria at a new record high of 94, or 97.9 per cent of the country’s total, up from 91 in last year’s report.
Bulgaria’s ratio of “excellent quality” sites was the second highest among the 29 countries covered by the report. A total of 96 bathing sites in Bulgaria were included in the survey, with one site rated as “good quality” and one as “sufficient quality.”
It was the sixth year running that Bulgaria did not have a single “poor quality” site.
The increase in “excellent quality” sites keeps Bulgaria well above the EU average. Overall, 85.4 per cent of the 21 848 EU bathing sites covered by the EEA report met “excellent quality” standards, unchanged from a year earlier.
A further 10.6 per cent of the EU bathing waters scored as good or sufficient quality, while 1.5 per cent scored poorly and 2.5 per cent could not be properly assessed due to insufficient data.
“We can all be glad that a vast majority of our bathing waters are clean enough to swim in. This is thanks to systematic work under EU rules which has steadily improved the health of our waters,” EEA executive director Leena Ylä-Mononen said in a statement.
“It shows that monitoring and coordination at the European level benefits every one of us. Of course, there is more to do to improve the cleanliness of our waters and their resilience to withstand new challenges posed by climate change and over-use,” she said.
Every year, the EEA compiles bathing water data gathered by local authorities across the 27 European Union member states, Switzerland and Albania – measuring levels of bacteria from sewage and livestock. More than two thirds of sites are coastal beaches, with rivers and lakes making up the remainder.
The full report is available here and an interactive map of all bathing sites covered by the report can be seen here.
(Photo: Clive Leviev-Sawyer)
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