Supreme quality of sea bathing water in Croatia

The 19th joint working meeting of County Institutes for public health, Administrative Departments and Institutes in charge of environment protection, spatial planning, construction, utility services, sustainable development and maritime affairs in the Adriatic was held on April 18-19 in Vis, on the Island of Vis. The meeting was organised by the Ministry of Environment and Nature Protection, Department of Marine and Coastal Protection based in Rijeka, and the County of Split-Dalmatia.

The national and county reports containing annual and four-year assessments of sea bathing water quality were presented at the meeting. In brief, 96,82% of sea bathing water in Croatia are of excellent quality, 1,97% of good, 0,88% of sufficient and only 0,33% of poor quality. In addition, the online mapping of sea bathing water quality in the Republic of Croatia was presented through the application of the WISE system (Water Information System for Europe). Owing to this detailed and user-friendly database updated every 15 days users can check the quality of sea bathing water in Croatia starting from May 15. The information is available at http://www.izor.hr/bathing/bathing.html .

A representative of the Ministry of Environment and Nature Protection informed the participants on the recently launched initiative for the preparation of a Coastal and Marine Strategy for Croatia that is to be led by the newly established inter-ministerial National Committee. A PAP/RAC representative presented the “MedPartnership” sister project on Climate Variability and ICZM, as well as the new initiative on assessing the social and economic costs for the Croatian coast and sea, the second step in the preparation of the Marine and Coastal Strategy.