EC Directive 76/160 defines the quality standards that bathing water shall meet and how this is to be measured. The EC Directive leaves it to the Member States to select the beaches where water quality is to be assessed in accordance with the Directive.
Denmark considers approx. 1,300 localities to be bathing areas under the EC Directive, of which 1,200 are at the coast and 100 are freshwater locations7. Responsibility for bathing water quality lies with the Municipalities; with tourism as one incentive, they go to great lengths to improve its status. Water quality is registered every year on a bathing water quality map published by the Danish EPA. In 1993, 96% of Danish bathing areas were up to standard, 2% were doubtful (too few analyses or insufficient grounds for imposing a ban on bathing), while bathing was banned at the remaining 2%.
Progress with regard to regulation of bathing water quality has been
marked, bathing now only being banned at 21 of the 1,300 bathing localities, as compared
to at approx. 200 in the mid 1980s8. The reasons for the few bans that remain are
overflows of untreated sewage, outlets of polluted watercourses or seepage from
contaminated sites. The progress made is partly attributable to meticulous treatment of
urban sewage, and partly due to measures directed at point sources of the type mentioned
above.