Puglia is confirmed first in Italy, for the fourth consecutive year, for the quality of bathing water (99.7 percent excellent), followed by Friuli Venezia Giulia (99 percent), Sardinia (98.4 percent) , Tuscany (98.2 percent). It is the result of microbiological analyzes conducted over the course of four years (2020-2023) by the SNPA, the National System for Environmental Protection. The president of the Puglia Region, Michele Emiliano, the regional councilor for the Environment, Serena Triggiani, spoke at the press conference to present the monitoring carried out by SNPA, which took place on 20 June 2024 at the headquarters of the General Directorate of Arpa Puglia. , the general director of Arpa Puglia, Vito Bruno, the scientific director of Arpa Puglia, Vincenzo Campanaro and the director of the Regional Sea Center of Arpa Puglia, Nicola Ungaro.
Along the approximately 1000 km of the Apulian coast, the Puglia Region has identified, pursuant to the current reference legislation, as many as 676 “waters” (tracts) intended for bathing, which correspond to a linear total of approximately 800 km: in particular they are 254 bathing waters were identified in the province of Foggia, 46 in the province of Bat, 78 in the province of Bari, 88 in the province of Toasts, 139 in the province of Lecce and 71 in the province of TarantoArpa Puglia monitors regional bathing water by checking its quality. During the seasonal monitoring period, various meteorological-marine parameters are measured in the field at each “station point”, while the samples are analyzed in the laboratory to determine the bacterial load, calculated, as by the other Italian agencies, with respect to threshold values of two microbiological parameters: “Intestinal enterococci” and “Escherichia coli”; in relation to the samples collected, it is estimated that every year the Apulian Agency carries out approximately 8,500 laboratory analytical determinations.
As regards Puglia, 0.3% of bathing water in the “not excellent” quality class concerns the following sites: “Foce Fiume Lauro (30 m to the right)” and “Foce Fiume Lauro (30 m to the left) in the lagoon of Lesina, both classified as “sufficient” quality, “Fogna Cit.na Molfetta (500 m south)” along the coast of the town of the same name and “Spiaggia libera Ginosa Marina-Fiume” in the province of Taranto, both classified as “good” quality ”, However, it should be noted that of the four sites described above, two concern marine-coastal waters (along the coast of Molfetta and Ginosa Marina), while the other two refer to transition waters (in this case the Lesina lagoon).
All data is always available on the Arpa Puglia institutional website, at the web address https://www.arpa.puglia.it/pagina2885_balneazione.html, where it is possible, using an interactive map, to view the geographical location of bathing waters as well as individual monitoring points, to which the most up-to-date analytical results are associated; the same web page also reports the data, in tabular form and in the form of a monthly bulletin, also for the periods prior to the one displayed. Precisely by virtue of the monitoring carried out, Arpa Puglia has available and processes a considerable amount of data, which allows it to provide a picture of the annual situation and the historical series regarding the state of quality of Apulian bathing water.
“For the fourth consecutive year Puglia has the cleanest sea in Italy – said Michele Emiliano -, a result for which we must thank the people of Puglia, the municipalities, the mayors, the Apulian Aqueduct for the purifiers, the discipline of feats, for a truly extraordinary team result”. “Arpa is the proactive guardian of these environmental remediation results of the Puglia Region, we have resolved an infinite number of infringements linked to polluted sites because Arpa follows large dangerous industrial sites. For this reason my thanks go to Arpa together with the commitment to stabilize all the young professionals who still work here with fixed-term contracts, because without their professional quality it would have been impossible to obtain these results. Puglia has the cleanest sea in Italy, such a result cannot be achieved by snapping one’s fingers but with very hard team work. And our region can count on a magnificent team.”
