Is your beach recommended for swimming?

Updated 11.30am

As Malta welcomes the summer, tourists and locals alike have begun flocking to beaches to soak up the sun and cool down in the sea.

But while bathing is a favourite pastime – and a welcome relief – in the sunny months, recent years have seen beaches abruptly closed due to contamination from sewage or construction debris.

This week, the Environmental Health Directorate urged people not to swim off Birżebbuġa because of a sewage outflow and closed a popular Ta’ Xbiex swimming spot to bathers.

While warning signs are placed on beaches during closures, for those interested in checking water quality before heading out of the door, the directorate’s Bathing Water Portal website could help.

The website shows a map of the country, providing information from 87 ‘monitoring points’ nationwide while detailing the number of bathing spots rated ‘excellent’, ‘good’, ‘sufficient’, ‘poor’ and ‘closed’.

Ratings are measured against two standards: a UN measurement of intestinal Enterococci – a bacteria used as an indicator of fecal contamination – and an EU directive measuring intestinal Enterococci and E.coli.

In a Facebook post following Times of Malta's article, the directorate noted that while 'excellent' and 'good' ratings "indicate a sustained very low risk of contamination from faecal contamination", 'sufficient' and 'poor' indicate the "minimum acceptable level of protection".

The directorate added that it monitored all bathing sites once per week, and pet-friendly beaches every four weeks. It advised against swimming in harbours and marinas, which it noted were not monitored for water quality.

How the site works

Selecting a monitoring point, indicated by an icon of a swimmer in the water, brings up its name, the responsible local council, water quality ratings, Blue Flag beach status and photos of the location.

Only officially designated bathing areas are shown on the map, meaning not every beach is included. In the case of the recent closure in Ta’ Xbiex, for example, the area is not an official bathing location so did not feature on the website.

Selecting a monitoring point pulls up more information about it – including a link to directorate press releases in the event of a closure. Screenshot: Bathing Water Portal.

In the event of closure, shown by a red stop sign overlayed over the monitoring point logo, a link to a directorate press release about the closure is also included.

There is a catch, however.

The website appears to operate on a time delay while providing water quality ratings for six-day windows. At the time of publication, the most recent information covered was June 1 to 7.

The recent Ta’ Xbiex closure was not shown on the map but the Birżebbuġa warnings – covering two swimming spots – were visible despite nationwide data for this week not yet being available, suggesting closures are added to the map separately to normal reporting windows.

The absence of older warnings, meanwhile, suggests that older warnings are removed once a beach is reopened.

Not only closures due to poor water quality feature on the portal; Għar Lapsi – which suffered heavy damage during Storm Harry – was showing as closed at the time of publication due to “Works in progress”. And the right-hand side of St George's Bay, close to ongoing works to develop a new hotel and lido, was marked as 'poor'

Selectable filters at the top of the maps allow users to streamline results based on zone, locality, pet-friendly beaches and whether beaches are recommended for bathing or temporarily closed.

Pet-friendly beaches are also indicated on the map.

Historical data dating back to 2024 was available at the time of publication.