Do Malta's bathing waters reach international standards?
A high level of bathing water quality is crucial for public health and the environment, and quality standards in this regard have been set through the EU Bathing Water Directive[1] and the United Nations Barcelona Convention.[2]
The related EU targets are for all bathing waters to comply with mandatory values in the Bathing Water Directive, and to increase the number of bathing waters complying with guide values in the Directive.
In 2007, compliance[3] with EU mandatory standards decreased slightly by one per cent to 95 per cent, while compliance with the more stringent guide values[4] increased from 84 per cent to 90 per cent.[5]
This year, most of Malta's bathing water sites continued to classify as Class 1 or 2 under the Barcelona Convention, while two sites classified as Class 3.
Both Class 1 and Class 2 sites comply with the Barcelona Convention, since while Class 2 sites conform with mandatory criteria, Class 1 sites fulfil additional non-mandatory standards.
In 2007, 55 per cent of bathing waters classified as first class, seven per cent more than in 2006, while 43 per cent and two per cent of the sites classified as second class and third class respectively.
Source: Department of Environmental Health
Environmental tip:
At the beach do not litter - dispose of waste appropriately.
[1] 76/160/EEC.
[2] Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment and the Coastal Region of the Mediterranean.
[3] http://www.eea.europa.eu/themes/water/status-and-monitoring/state-of-bathing-water .
[4] The EU classifies bathing waters into two categories depending on whether a site has passed or failed a set of criteria. ( http://ims.eionet.europa.eu/IMS/ISpecs/ISpecification20041007132021/full_spec ).
[5] The large quality improvement registered in 2006 was due to the reduction in the number of insufficiently sampled bathing sites, with respect to physico-chemical parameters, that occurred in 2005. This number fell from 46 bathing sites to zero in 2006.