29 July, 2020
What to look out for when swimming?
With the hot days finally here, most of us will probably soon be heading to areas where we can cool off in natural waters. The COVID-19 epidemic and the introduction of tourist vouchers will probably also contribute to many of you spending your holidays in Slovenia. The NIJZ has produced a report on surface water quality and bathing site-specific warnings.
Bathing in surface waters (rivers, lakes and the sea) can pose a risk to human health due to various factors. The main concern is microbiological – faecal pollution of surface waters due to municipal waste water discharges. Bathing is not safe everywhere. Uncontrolled surface waters (so-called ‘wild bathing sites’) are not monitored (monitoring) and therefore have questionable (unknown) water quality, nor do they have an operator and lifeguards.
We therefore recommend bathing in bathing areas and natural bathing sites that are included in national monitoring (monitoring of the microbiological quality of bathing waters and that have been found to be in good chemical and good ecological condition). In accordance with the requirements of European and national bathing water legislation, there are currently 48 designated bathing waters on surface waters in Slovenia (30 bathing areas and 18 natural bathing sites). These are stretches of rivers, lakes and the sea that meet the legal criteria for surface bathing waters, and where bathing is usually more common. The bathing areas and natural bathing sites on surface waters where bathing water quality is monitored by national monitoring are located in the North-Pomerania region, the South-Pomerania region, the Gorenjska region, the Dolenjska region and the Bela kraijina region.
The project is partly financed by the Ministry of Labour, Family, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities and the European Union, through the European Social Fund. The operation is financed under the Operational Programme for the Implementation of the European Cohesion Policy 2014-2020, Priority Axis 9 “Social inclusion and reducing the risk of poverty”, Priority Investment 9.1 “Active inclusion, including the promotion of equal opportunities and active participation, and improving employability”, Specific Objective 9.1.2 “Empowering target groups to move towards the labour market”.
