Malta has one of Europe’s cleanest water as it ranked third in the water quality list of the European Union. Maltese waters were only bested by Luxemburg and Cyprus.
The study was carried out by the European Environmental Agency, and the report was published on Wednesday. The agency concluded that the vast majority of Europe’s water is ‘excellent’. In fact, 87% of more than 21,000 coastal and lakeside bathing sites fall under this category.
According to the EEA report for water quality in 2015, more than 90% of bathing water sites were of excellent quality in eight Member States. All of the 11 sites tested in Luxembourg were excellent, more than 99% of Cyprus’ bathing sites and Malta followed with 97.7% of tested bathing sites in Malta resulting as ‘excellent’.
383 tested bathing sites in Europe have poor water quality.
It said aquatic quality has consistently improved since 1991, when only 56 percent of sites had excellent water.
Albania was at the bottom of the list, with the highest number of sites with poor water quality.
The EEA said that overall, only 1.6 percent of sites were deemed unsuitable for bathing, down from 1.9 percent the previous year.
The report was signed by European Commissioner for the Environment, Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Karmenu Vella.