Water quality along the Neapolitan coast

Two kinds of surveys on marine environment quality were carried out along the Neapolitan Bay from the winter 1977 to 1980. The first was a general investigation along 60 km of coast, embracing several municipalities. Its purpose was to identify the most consistently polluted areas. The second one was a more limited but prolonged monitoring along about 12 km of coast entirely included in the municipality of Naples. At the beginning of this latter inspection two fecally contaiminated areas were found. These showed an increase in pollution during summer. However during the three years of surveillance a general improvement of the water quality was observed, perhaps due to the use of undersea pipes for the discharge of sewage far from the coast. As a consequence in the summer of 1980, 78% of the sampling points exihibited values ofEscherichia coli below limits prescribed in the Italian standard for bathing water (100E. coli/100 ml), while only 38% of the stations in the summer of 1978 could be considered suitable for bathing.