RESEARCH PAPER
Bathing water sites in Poland - issues of the organization and supervision as a consequence of the Water Law Act amendment
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Instytut Inżynierii Środowiska, Szkoła Główna Gospodarstwa Wiejskiego w Warszawie
Submission date: 2019-11-26
Final revision date: 2020-02-03
Acceptance date: 2020-02-03
Publication date: 2020-04-22
Corresponding author
Ewa Kaznowska
Instytut Inżynierii Środowiska, Szkoła Główna Gospodarstwa Wiejskiego w Warszawie
Acta Sci. Pol. Formatio Circumiectus 2019;18(4):187-208
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ABSTRACT
Aim of the study:
The aim of the paper is to assess changes in organization and supervision of bathing waters and places occasionally used for the bath in Poland that have occurred after the implementation of the Bathing Water Directive 2006/7/EC.
Material and methods:
The study bases on the law regulation published in the Journal of Laws and Polish Monitor - Official Journals of the Republic of Poland). Also, Chief Sanitary Inspectorate annual reports and Bathing Web Service (www.sk.gis.gov.pl) were used in the investigation. The analysis of the number of bathing waters covers the period 2010-2019, while the quality of bathing waters was analyzed in the period 2014-2018.
Results and conclusions:
In terms of quality, the most assessments of unsuitability for bathing water in 2011-2018 were as a consequence of cyanobacteria blooms (with the maximum in 2018).
The assessment of the state of water carried out in 2018 (being the average from 2015-2018) similar to the assessment from 2014 (average from the period 2011-2014) found that more than 70% of bathing waters were of excellent quality, about 10% were assessed as with sufficient quality and only 3 inland bathing waters (1%) were of poor quality.
According to data from 2018, Poland ranks 22nd among EU countries in terms of the number of bathing waters with excellent water quality. Despite the constantly growing tendency to improve the quality of bathing water compared to other EU countries, we still lack a lot to the European average of 85% of bathing areas with excellent water quality.