Bathing waters

This section of the website demonstrates SEPA's commitment to providing comprehensive information on the quality of Scotland's bathing waters. As well as housing SEPA's annual bathing water reports and regularly updated monitoring results for identified and non-identified waters, it contains information on new initiatives aimed at promoting better bathing water quality in Scotland.

SEPA is committed to achieving full compliance with EC Bathing Water Directive standards and is working closely with others to deliver a reduction in risk from both urban and rural sources of pollution. Some of our key partners in this include the Scottish Government, Scottish Water, local authorities, non-governmental organisations and the agricultural community, as identified in the Scottish Government’s Bathing Water Strategy for Scotland. SEPA is playing its part in delivering the required improvements and in fulfilling the role identified for it by the Scottish Government in its Bathing Water Strategy.

In March 2006 the revised Bathing Water Directive (2006/7/EC) came into force. This was enacted in the UK by the Bathing Waters (Scotland) Regulations 2008 which came into effect in May 2008. Key features include increased provision of public information, tighter microbiological standards to be met by 2015 and monitoring to be commenced by 2012.