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From Town Tools. For the current version, visit https://www.towntools.org/tartu-tartu-county-ee/swimming-water
Terviseamet, Estonia's Health Board, publishes two different judgements about the same water: a class worked out once a year from four seasons of samples, and a verdict on the most recent sample, re-tested about every week through the summer. They can disagree, so this page keeps them apart and shows what the laboratory actually measured.
Right now: has it rained?
Right now
Heavy rain in the last three days — the water can be worse than the grades show.
This is the kind of rain that pushes stormwater — and sewage, when the sewer overflows — into the water. The grades below were measured on a calm day and understate the risk right now, worst at the flagged points. This is rainfall, not a water test.
21 mm
Rain, last 72 hours
Weather-model estimate for the shore (72 h covered), not a rain gauge
5,6 mm
Heaviest hour
A downpour matters more than steady drizzle
The rule that surprises people
A four-year class and a single morning's sample are different measurements, and one does not predict the other. A place can hold a poor class and still pass this week's sample, and a place with a good class can fail one. Read the date on each.
Why rain changes it
Rain washes street run-off into the canal and the river. Every verdict on this page comes from a sample taken on one particular morning, so a soaking since then is not in it. The rain figure below is a weather model, not a water test.
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
Terviseamet (the Estonian Health Board) — monitors bathing water, publishes every sample to the national register, and works out each place's class at the end of the season
Terviseamet samples through the season and publishes each result to the register as it comes in. The four-year class is worked out once, at the end of each season, from the last four years of samples.
Data: Terviseamet, Vee terviseohutuse infosüsteem (VTIAV), dataset “Supluskohad” — CC BY-SA 3.0.
Rain updated 12 Oct, 14:51. The rain figure is a weather-model estimate for the shore around Tartu, 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.
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Heavy rain lately — the water can be worse than the grades show
Anne kanal: class Halb, last sample halb · 21 mm of rain in 72 h
What the Health Board publishes for each swimming place
Out of season
The monitoring season is closed, so there is no current rating.
Outside the season nobody is sampling, so the sample verdicts here are the last ones taken and their dates say when. The four-year class does not change until the end of the next season.
Four-year class
One of these places holds the register’s lowest class.
Most recent sample
One of these places failed its most recent sample.
These are two different measurements and they can disagree. The class on the left is four seasons of samples, worked out once a year. The verdict on the right is one morning’s water, and in season it is re-tested about every week.
Swimming place
Four-year class
Most recent sample
Anne kanalAnne kanal I · tehisjärvThe canal off Anne tänav — the city's main swimming spot, with a beach, a children's pool and a boat jetty.Register page · Bathing-water profile
Halbthe 2025 classificationread from this place’s own register page on 1 August 2026avoid swimmingpoor — the register's lowest class
halbsampled 25 August 2026 — last montholder than one full sampling roundavoid swimmingthe most recent sample did not meet the requirements
Rahinge paisjärve supluskohtRahinge paisjärv · tehisjärvThe reservoir at Rahinge, about 10 km west of the centre and inside the Tartu city municipality.Register page
Ei ole võimalik hinnatathe 2025 classificationpublished in the register’s open datanot classified
Terviseamet's open-data file carries the four-year class for only some places. Where it does, the class above comes straight from it. Where it does not — Anne kanal and both Emajõgi swimming places — it was read off that place's own page in the register on the date its row states.
Ratings read .
Notices the Health Board has published
Anne kanal
Lasteala supluskohast 25.08.2026 võetud proovide tulemused näitavad, et suurenenud on soole enterokokkide sisaldus. Veekvaliteedi paranemist kinnitavate analüüsitulemuste saabumiseni ei ole soovitatav seal ajutiselt ujuda.The register carries this text without a publication date of its own — read it beside the sampling date above.
What the laboratory measured on the most recent visit
One line per monitoring point. Places are sampled at more than one point, and the points can disagree on the same morning — so each is shown with the Health Board’s own verdict on it rather than reduced to a single number.
Where the sample was taken
What was measured
The verdict on it
Anne kanalAnne kanal, lastebasseini kohalt - seirepunkt 1sampled 25 August 2026
Terviseamet judges each analysis against the national limits and publishes its own verdict on it, which is the last column. Two indicators are tested at every bathing place: intestinal enterococci (soole enterokokid) and Escherichia coli, both counted per 100 ml.
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
Each bathing place is run by its owner — Anne kanal and both Emajõgi swimming places by Tartu Linnavalitsus — and it is the notice at the water's edge, not this page, that closes one. Terviseamet publishes the measurements and any advisory notice.
The official bathing season runs from 1 June to 31 August, though an operator may open earlier or close later. Terviseamet's sampling starts before it: the first samples of 2026 in the register were taken on 11 May, and Anne kanal has been sampled every week since 30 June.
the register did not have enough samples to work out a class — not a pass and not a fail
väga heasampled 5 August 2026 — 2 months agoolder than one full sampling roundgood to swimthe most recent sample met the requirements
Ihaste supluskohtEmajõgi · jõgiThe jetty at Ihaste on the Emajõgi. It is on the register, but Terviseamet has published no sample from it.Register page
Ei ole võimalik hinnatathe 2021 classificationread from this place’s own register page on 1 August 2026not classifiedthe register did not have enough samples to work out a class — not a pass and not a fail
—the register publishes no sample for this placeno rating published