Sardinia posts 98% 'eccellente' waters

Beach-water rankings are back in Italian travel coverage, and Sardinia is sitting where people expect it to sit — near the top. But the important thing is what the number actually means. The 98%-plus figure making the rounds is tied to official bathing-water classification, not a vibes-based list and not yet the 2026 Blue Flag awards. So yes, the island’s sea looks strong again — but there are two different scoreboards here. (autoritadibacino.regione.sardegna.it) ### What was actually posted? The usable official number comes from Sardinia’s own water-monitoring pages and regional basin authority material now live for the 2026 bathing season. Those pages say Sardinia remained at 98.7% of monitored coast in the “eccellente” class, based on the most recent classification set out for the season, with 1,391 kilometers rated excellent across 663 monitored bathing waters. (autoritadibacino.regione.sardegna.it) ### What does “eccellente” mean? Basically, it is the top legal quality class for bathing water under the EU bathing-water framework adopted in Italy. Waters get sorted into four buckets — excellent, good, sufficient, and poor — using microbiological indicators and multi-year data, not just one nice week of clear water. So when Sardinia posts 98.7%, that is a compliance and monitoring result first, and a tourism brag second. (salute.gov.it) ### Is that number for 2026 or 2025? This is the part that trips people up. The 2026 bathing season is now open, and the regional circular for this season includes the “esiti e classificazione relativi all’anno 2025” — meaning the season’s management uses the latest completed classification data from 2025. In other words, the headline is being u(salute.gov.it)sons, which is how the bathing-water system works. (sardegnaambiente.it) ### How strong is Sardinia compared with Italy? Very strong — even by Italian standards. Italy’s national profile for 2024 showed 95.7% of monitored coast in the excellent class. Sardinia’s page puts the island at 98.7%, which is comfortably above that already-high national figure. Sardinia also says it has the largest share of bathing coa(sardegnaambiente.it)of roughly 2,650 kilometers of total coastal development. (autoritadibacino.regione.sardegna.it) ### Why does everyone keep mentioning La Cinta? Because La Cinta, in San Teodoro, is one of those beaches that turns raw water-quality numbers into something people can picture. It is a long white-sand strip with shallow, clear water and a lagoon behind it — exactly the kind of place that gets pulled into “c(autoritadibacino.regione.sardegna.it). The official system scores monitored waters region-wide; lifestyle lists then spotlight famous beaches inside that broader result. (sardegnaturismo.it) ### So is this the same as Blue Flag? No — and that distinction matters. Blue Flag is a separate FEE program that looks at water quality, but also environmental management, services, safety, accessibility, and municipal documentation. The 2026 procedure was already published, and candidate towns had filed materials months earlier, including certified ARPA w(sardegnaturismo.it)thing-water data without that automatically meaning a Blue Flag award has been confirmed. (bandierablu.org) ### Why should anyone care beyond tourism ads? Because clean bathing water is both a public-health signal and an infrastructure signal. It tells you sewage systems, monitoring, local controls, and temporary pollution management are working well enough to keep most sites in the top class. For Sardinia, that is econ(bandierablu.org)it up. (autoritadibacino.regione.sardegna.it) ### Bottom line Sardinia’s big number is real, and it is impressive. But the cleanest way to read today’s story is this — the island entered the 2026 bathing season with official water-quality data still showing 98.7% “eccellente” waters, while the separate Blue Flag verdict for 2026 was still its own process. (autoritadibacino.regione.sardegna.it)