Sea Quality — Beach by Beach

The national register's grade for all 22 monitored Rijeka beaches — this fortnight's sample and the four-season record side by side — plus how much rain has fallen, because that is what turns the water at Kantrida.

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Twenty-two points along Rijeka's shore are sampled about every fortnight through the swimming season, and the national register publishes a grade for each.

Right now: has it rained?

Right now

Little rain lately — read the grades below as they are.

Nothing much has washed into the water recently, so the beach grades below are the real read today.

6 mm

Rain, last 72 hours

Weather-model estimate for the shore (72 h covered), not a rain gauge

1.6 mm

Heaviest hour

A downpour matters more than steady drizzle

The rule that surprises people

Two of the four grades are a green light: izvrsna (excellent) and dobra (good). Zadovoljavajuća (sufficient) still meets the national standard but is the bottom of it — the water was measurably loaded when they tested. Nezadovoljavajuća (poor) means it failed, and swimming there is not advised.

Why rain changes it

Rijeka's problem is not the open bay, it is what reaches the bay from the hillside above it. When the City agreed extra Kantrida sampling in July 2026 it named the causes plainly: stormwater drainage that cannot cope, sewers that are not up to the job, and a number of properties along the shore still not connected to the public sewer at all. That is why a heavy shower matters here and a calm fortnight does not — after a downpour the water at Kantrida can be worse than any grade on this page, and the grades were all measured on mornings when it was not raining.

Two different things

The class is a snapshot from a lab sample taken now and then — not a live status. The rain figure is a heuristic, not a test: it tells you stormwater may be running, never that the water is clean or dirty. Neither is a guarantee; after heavy rain, give it a day or two and favour the beaches graded highest.

Who grades the water

Institut za oceanografiju i ribarstvo (IZOR) — IZOR runs the national bathing-water register for the Ministry of Economy and Sustainable Development. The samples themselves are taken by the county public-health institute, Nastavni zavod za javno zdravstvo Primorsko-goranske županije.

The register samples each point about every fortnight from mid-May to the end of September and publishes the grade within a few days. The four-season assessment is recomputed once a year, after the season ends.

Check it yourself

Kakvoća mora za kupanje — the national registerEvery sampling point in Croatia on a map, with each one's whole season of results, the four-season assessment, and the beach profile.
Grad Rijeka — beaches and the swimming seasonThe city maintains the beaches and publishes what it is doing about the ones that grade badly.

Kakvoća mora za kupanje — Institut za oceanografiju i ribarstvo (IZOR) for the Ministry of Economy and Sustainable Development

Rain updated 12 Oct, 13:52. The rain figure is a weather-model estimate for the shore around Kantrida, useful for spotting a recent soaking, not an exact total. Weather data by Open-Meteo (CC BY 4.0). The bathing-water grades are from the source listed above.

What the register says about each beach

Out of season

The monitoring season is closed, so there is no current rating.

The sampling season is over. The four-season assessment below still stands — it is computed from four whole seasons and does not change until the register recomputes it after next summer.

Four-season record

One of these places holds the register’s lowest class.

Latest sample

Every one of these places passed its most recent sample.

Two different facts sit side by side below. The latest sample is one bottle of water from one morning; the final assessment is the register’s verdict on four whole seasons at that point. A beach can pass this fortnight and still hold a failing record — that is exactly what the two columns are for.

Beach	Four-season record	Latest sample
Kantrida - zapadThe City agreed extra rapid microbiological testing here and at Kantrida — istok from 20 July to 30 September 2026, after E. coli rose and the grade slipped.	nezadovoljavajućafinal assessment for 2025, from 40 samples over four seasonsavoid swimmingfailed over four seasons — a standing problem, not one bad morning	dobrasampled 21 September 2026 (3 weeks ago)good to swimgood — the second grade, comfortably compliant
Kantrida - istokThe other half of the extra 2026 sampling programme. Both Kantrida points carry a failing four-season record.	nezadovoljavajućafinal assessment for 2025, from 40 samples over four seasonsavoid swimmingfailed over four seasons — a standing problem, not one bad morning	izvrsna

The four-season assessment rests on about forty samples and is the one to read if you swim somewhere regularly. It is also where Rijeka's real story is: Kantrida — istok and Kantrida — zapad both carry a failing four-season record while individual samples through this summer have come back good or excellent. Both facts are true. One says what the water was like on one morning; the other says what it has been like since 2022.

Ratings read now.

Visible pollution

The sampler recorded no visible pollution at any of these points.

This page does not say whether the water is fine today. It reports what the authority last published, and when. The sign at the water’s edge is the one that decides.

Who decides, at the water’s edge

The authoritative posting is the board the city puts up at the beach itself, and the register's own map. This page is a reading of the register, not a substitute for either.

The register's season here ran 19 May to 22 September in 2025, ten samplings at each point, and 2026 started on 18 May. Outside those months nobody is sampling, so no fresh grade exists — the four-season assessment is the honest answer in winter.