The percentage of gazzetted beaches ranked as poor/very poor according to the Water Quality Objectives (WQO). The objective set for all bathing beaches is that “the level of E.coli should not exceed 180 per ml for all samples collected from March to October (bathing season)” (Water Pollution Control Ordinance). The annual rank (excellent, good, fair, poor, very poor) of each of the beaches is determined with the monitoring data collected. Beaches with poor rating refer to beaches with more than an annual average geometric mean of 180 E.coli count per 100ml.