Anyone looking to cool off on German lakes, rivers and coasts this summer can look forward to predominantly excellent water quality. Only eight of the more than 2,000 bathing spots failed the EU test.
Copenhagen (dpa) - Germany's lakes, rivers and coastal waters continue to offer excellent water quality with a few exceptions. This emerges from the annual bathing water report of the European Environment Agency EEA.
According to this, 92.5 percent of all German bathing waters in 2019 had excellent water quality. More than 98 percent met the EU minimum standards.
Only eight of the 2291 German bathing areas examined failed this year in the annual evaluation because too many questionable bacteria had been found in the water: the quality on the Elbe near Brokdorf in Schleswig-Holstein was rated as poor in the EEA report as well as that on the North Sea beach Wremen and the Weser beach Sandstedt in Lower Saxony, the Goldscheuer bathing lake in Kehl in Baden-Württemberg and the Triefenstein monastery lake in northern Bavaria. Further diarrhea was therefore the Spreelagune in Lübben in Brandenburg and two places on the southern shore of the Süsse See in Saxony-Anhalt. In 2018, six jobs in Germany were classified as defective.
For the survey, the EEA looked at the data from 30 European countries for the contamination of 22,295 bodies of water with faecal bacteria, which can lead to diseases in humans. Specifically, there are two types of germs: intestinal enterococci and Escherichia coli. The quality depends on the proven amount of these bacteria, which come mainly from waste water and from agriculture. If it is classified as defective, bathing is prohibited, warnings or other measures are recommended.
The data refer to the bathing season of the previous year - the corona crisis therefore had no effect on the values. The EEA therefore recommends bathing enthusiasts to inquire at local and national authorities as well as beach operators for the latest information on possible safety measures before they jump into the cool water this summer.
Across Europe, the EEA confirmed that the water quality overall remains high. In all 28 EU member states - Great Britain was still part of the European Union in 2019 - and Albania and Switzerland taken together, almost 85 percent of all bathing spots were rated excellent, around 95 percent managed to achieve a grade. In general, the experts came to the conclusion that the quality of bathing water on the coast is better than inland.
Clean bathing water is usually perceived as a given, but is actually a common achievement of Europe, said EU Environment Commissioner Virginijus Sinkevicius. The new annual report confirms once again that Europeans could enjoy very high quality standards when bathing in water.
Germany was again above the European average and came in sixth place behind Cyprus, Austria, Malta, Greece and Croatia with the highest proportion of bathing spots considered excellent. The holiday countries Italy and Spain, which are particularly popular with Germans, also ended up in the top midfield with 88.4 percent of excellent bathing waters.
Already in the previous year's report, the EU authority had issued a largely good certificate to German waters: At that time, around 98 percent of the bathing spots examined in the Federal Republic also met the EU minimum standards, 92.7 percent had received the top grade.
Interactive map of the EEA
Country report Germany