This landlocked country has been voted Europe's best for bathing

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(CNN) — The quality of Europe’s bathing waters has improved dramatically in recent decades, and a new report released this week by the European Environment Agency (EEA) reveals that nearly 85% of seaside resorts are now rated “excellent”.

The annual Bathing water report monitored nearly 22,000 inland and coastal swimming spots in the EU Member States, Albania and Switzerland in 2021. The UK, which had left the EU, was absent from the report for the first time.

The landlocked country of Austria, known for its many beautiful lakes, including the Alpine waters of Achensee in Tyrol and the emerald green Weissensee in Carinthia, top the rankings, with 97.7% of its waters rated excellent.

Just behind that, at the top of the standings, are four Mediterranean vacation favorites: Malta, Greece, Croatia and Cyprus. Denmark and Germany are the other countries where more than nine out of ten sites received the highest rating.

Portugal is in 10th place with 88.5%, while Italy (87.9%) and Spain (87.4%) are in 12th and 13th place respectively.

Tourism hotspot France is lower in the ranking at 75.7%, while Poland ranks lowest at just 44.5% — some distance behind Slovakia at 50% and Hungary at 60.2%.

Rising standards

Malta has been voted No. 2 on the list of Europe’s best seaside resorts.

Efesenko / Adobe Stock

The assessment was prepared by the EEA in collaboration with the European Commission. Local and national authorities took water samples during the bathing season and analyzed them for the types of bacteria that indicate pollution from sewage and livestock.

The waters were then rated as “excellent”, “good”, “satisfactory” or “poor”, according to European Union standards.

Swimming in poorly graded waters can lead to illness – if the water is swallowed, swimmers can develop stomach pains or diarrhea.

France had a total of 99 seaside resorts rated “poor”, meaning they had to close the following bathing season, with measures to reduce pollution and rule out health risks.

Locations rated as bad for five years in a row have to be closed permanently – this happened to 31 seaside resorts in Italy, eight in France and two in the Netherlands.

That rule is part of the Bathing Water Directive passed in 2006 and has resulted in the share of prime locations continuously increasing since then. The quality of EU waters is generally high and 95.2% of all sites assessed meet minimum water quality standards.