The good news is that, in 2024, 90.2% of the bathing waters on the Ligurian coast are included in the ‘excellent’ quality class. What catches the eye, however, is that Liguria, despite having held the record for blue flags in Italy for years, is not among the best on the Peninsula and, in fact, is rather behind the scenes, even in a general context that is certainly positive. The data emerges from the monitoring activities of the National System for Environmental Protection (SNPA).
Blue Flags 2024, Liguria is still first in Italy: 2 new municipalities (but also 2 not reconfirmed)
95.6% of the Italian sea is of ‘excellent’ quality
The results are inserted into four categories, which define the bathing waters. At a national level, the average classifies 95.6% of the 5,325.8 km of coast as excellent, 2.9% as good, and 2.9% as sufficient. 0.6% and as poor 0.8%. Therefore, adding excellent and good, the national average is 98.5%.
In Liguria data lower than the national average
The Ligurian data are quite different: overall we are talking about 396.7 km of marine stretches, 90.2% of which are classified as excellent, given that Liguria is in eleventh place out of fourteen regions (it would be fifteen, but they are not available data from Sicily). Worse data are recorded only in Campania (90.2%), Abruzzo (89.7%) and Calabria (89.6%).
6.3% of the Ligurian coast is instead considered good in terms of water quality (and therefore by adding the first two items we arrive at 96.5%, a percentage lower than the national average), 1.4% is sufficient and just 1.9%. The last figure, the worst, is obviously very low. However, even in this case the ranking of the regions stands out: only in three, in Italy, is it higher: Abruzzo (3.3%), Campania (3.1%) and Calabria (2.1%). In most of the others it is at 0% or slightly above.
The regions with the best data
However, the kilometers of coastline in ‘excellent’ quality reach very high percentages in each region, with peaks above 98% in Puglia (99.7%), Friuli Venezia Giulia (99%), Sardinia (98.4%) and Tuscany (98.2%). “The differences in values close to or above 90% which in all regional areas testify to the excellent quality of our bathing water – explain the SNPA – are also attributable to the specific characteristics of the coasts monitored. Similar percentages emerge for the quality of the water bathing in lakes and rivers: out of the 662 km on which monitoring takes place in Italy, 630 km are bathed in excellent quality water, equal to 95.2% of the total monitored, 20 km are of good quality (3.1%). , 6 km in sufficient quality (0.9%), 1 km in poor quality (0.2%).
“Data in line with those of previous years”
“These are now consolidated data, which confirm what was found in previous years – continues the National System for the Protection of the Environment -, the result of the surveillance and control activity carried out by the environmental agencies, which carry out monitoring in most of the regions During 2023, the SNPA took approximately 26 thousand samples of sea water and over 2,300 samples of river and lake water, for a total of more than 28 thousand samplings. There are two microbiological parameters on the basis of which it is evaluated the bathability of the waters, the concentrations of Escherichia coli and intestinal enterococci. Overall, there are 4,710 areas on which monitoring is carried out”.
Italian waters are the best in Italy
At a European level, Italian waters are better than the average of EU countries, based on data processed by the European Environment Agency. Sicily is excluded from the SNPA monitoring because it is monitored by the regional health system. All areas permanently prohibited for bathing for various reasons (river mouths, ports, military areas, protected areas) in which sampling is generally not carried out are also excluded.
