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3.2 Integrated bathing water management

Integrated bathing water management involves finding synergies between different parties and interest groups through collaboration to encourage effective bathing water management. Under this approach, bathing water designation should not follow a traditional top-down approach where a higher authority (e.g. the EU) delegates tasks to participants at lower levels (e.g. a local community). Public consultation and engagement with local communities is vital, and plays an important role when dealing with the challenges associated with bathing water management. Every European Member State tackles its own specific issues when managing bathing waters and implementing the BWD. These specifics depend mostly on physical, administrative, and socio-economical constraints (EEA, 2016b). Nevertheless, all Member States make great efforts, not only to improve the quality of existing bathing waters and provide up-to-date information to the public, but also to make bathing feasible in urbanised and formerly heavily polluted surface waters.