Underground waters as one of the sources of water resources for
solving the problem of providing the population with drinking water
have acquired a rather great significance for many countries of Europe
and the world. For instance, in Ukraine underground sources account
for some 30% of water yield for householddrinking water
supply. Underground water, as more protected from pollution, are used
for the production of bottled waters, whose role as a main dominant
source of drinking water for the population in many European countries
every day increases.
At the same time, starting from the second half of the 20th century
against the background of the disastrous changes in the quality of the
environment, deterioration of the ecological state of surface and
underground sources, the problem of monitoring the quality of water
used by people for drinking purposes becomes ever acute. As a result
of its low quality real threats of the sanitary-epidemiological
situation do emerge in different regions of the planet. In the context
of these problems the atlas–book (Reimann&Birke(eds.) Geochemistry of
European Bottled Water, 2010.XII, 268p., 28 fig., 6 tabl., 2app., 67
element maps, data CD, ISBN 978-3-443-01067-6) put out by Borntraeger
Science Publishers (Stuttgart, Germany) in December 2010 draws great
interest. It includes 9 chapters including the introduction and
conclusions, the bibliographical list, applications and a CDDROM
containing data base of the atlas.
The authors of the book has used the original and sufficiently
interesting approach to the assessment of the chemical quality of
Europe’s underground waters by the analysis of the chemical
composition (inorganic components) of bottled waters, which are sold
for drinking in various countries of the European continent. At
present, in Europe approximately 1900 trade marks of the so-called
“mineral waters” have been officially registered. These waters are
produced for drinking purposes and all bottled water is the water from
underground sources. The data on the composition of the bottled water,
which was on sale in 2008–2009 in 40 countries of Europe—from Portugal
to Russia including Ukraine are behind the atlas planning. It is
important that all samples of the water were analyzed in one
laboratory on more than 70 indicators using modern analytical methods
and in compliance with European standards. All in all 1785 samples of
bottle water from 1247 wells of 884 localities and also 500 samples of
tap water (2008).
The introduction (Chapter 1) contains substantiation of the chosen
conceptual approach, in this case it is very important, that real
complications, related to its implementation, are discussed as well as
possible reasons making it possible to talk about poor
representationism of a number of obtained data. In addition, a brief
information is given on what underground waters are, what the terms
“bottled water”, “mineral water”, “spring water’, “table mineral
water”, and “medicinal water” mean and besides information is given on
the requirements of the effective European legislation and
international standards (WHO, FAO, Codex, US EPA) for mineral drinking
waters.
Chapter 2 of the atlas–book deals with a brief description of the
hydrochemistry of underground waters and factors affecting the
formation of their chemical composition.
The initial data of the European continent—topography, geology,
mineral fossils, the hydrological map of Europe, soils, vegetation,
and the use of lands, climate and human activities are given in
Chapter 3.
The book’s Chapter 4 contains the description of the analytical part
of the completed research: the procedure of selection and preparation
of water sampling for the analysis, analytical techniques (ICPGMS,
ICPAES analysis, atomicfluorescent spectroscopy, ionic
chromatography, photometric analysis, titration, potentiometry and
conductometry), quality control, detection limits, international
standard samples, etc. The results of comparison of the obtained data
of the analysis of water samples with the information given on the
labels of bottled waters are interesting in the practical
viewpoint. An important part of the given chapter seems to be the
material dealing with the discussion of possible issues (the impact of
different methods of water treatment, etc.) in the use of obtained
information on bottled water for the formulation of the conclusion
about the fact whether they provide a real picture of the real quality
of underground water and whether they are capable of reflecting
“geology”.
Chapter 5 briefly describes the electronic data base, which were
obtained on bottled waters, the European tap water and also earlier
published data base on the composition of European surface waters (The
FOREGS Geochemical Atlas of Europe Surface Water, 2005) and mountain
underground waters of Norway (Frengstad B. et al., 2000, Science of
the Total Environment, 246, pp. 21–40) given in the CD-ROM attached to
the book.
Chapter 6 gives the results of the comparative analysis of the
composition of bottled waters (by 69 elements/indicators) with the
composition of the samples of the European tap water, European surface
waters and underground waters of Norway. In this case a general
conclusion is made that along with a number of exceptions, the samples
of bottled waters in terms of mean values and their spreading secure a
representative idea about the quality of European water.
Chapter 7 is a key one since it shows concentration maps of the
European continent by every indicator/element (electric conduction,
pH, alkalinity, Ag, Al, As, B, Be, Bi, Br–,Ca, Cd, Ce, Cl–, Co, Cr,
Cs, Cu, Dy, Er, Eu, F–, Ga, Gd, Ge, Hf, Ho, I, K, La, Li, Lu, Mg, Mn,
Mo, Na, Nb, Nd, NH4 +, Ni, NO3 –, P, Pb, Pr, Rb, Se, Si, Sm, Sn, SO4
2–, Sr, Ta, Tb, Te, Th, Tl, Tm, U, V, W, Y, Yb, Zn, Zr) with
explanations and discussion of the features being observed on maps and
informations on the normalization of the contents of these elements by
the European standard for drinking water.
Chapter 8 is dedicated to the analysis of the aftermath for human
health of consumption of drinking water containing these or other
elements in the context of normalizing their contents to the standards
of the European Union (EU Directive 2003/40/EC Mineral Water,
Directive 98/93/EC) WHO and individual countries and also based on the
obtained data base on the water composition. The given book discuses
those indicators for which maximum allowable concentrations are set as
well as a number of indicators, which are not standardized, but may
affect human health. In this case the book’s authors draw attention to
the fact that the field of vision did not include the analysis of the
water composition in terms of organic components and the presence of
pathogenic organisms whose role from the viewpoint of water safety for
human health, when compared with inorganic indicators, is not less
important and sometimes even more important.
General conclusions by the results of the conducted research are set
out in Chapter 9. In this case we would like to note that the authors
realized their concept and the data given in the atlas–book on bottled
waters may be used for the formation of the first idea about natural
transformations of analyzed elements in the waters in the scales of
Europe. It has been found that natural variations of concentrations
are great and constitute 3–4 orders of magnitude and in some cases 7
orders of magnitude. It is important, that from the viewpoint of
meeting the European standards for the water it was true for most of
studied samples. At the same time the authors of the book believe that
for rather large amount of elements in terms of their impact on human
health, a special attention should be given to boundary values of
concentration ranges.
Thus, the book Geochemistry of European Bottled Waters on the whole
deserves a positive assessment and is of a considerable interest both
for experts working in the field of geochemistry, hydrochemistry,
standardization, water treatment, and preparation of drinking water,
production of bottled water and for inhabitants of the European
continent using bottled water as a constant source of drinking water.
However, analyzing the materials of the book one may express a deep
regret that for the conduction of such widescale research, within
the framework of the European continent, of bottled waters and tap
water for drinking purposes fundamental approaches to the assessment
of drinking water quality were not used, which were developed in
Ukraine for the last decades (Goncharuk, V.V., Khimiya i Tekhnologiya
Vody, 2008, special issue, part 2, pp. 52–111; Goncharuk, V.V., ibid.,
pp. 112–125; Goncharuk, V.V., ibid.,2010, vol. 32, no. 5, pp. 463–512)
whose results were the development of the State Standard of Ukraine
for Drinking Water.
The new Standard of Ukraine, in fact, includes three standards:
– GOST Standard for tap water (potable water);
– GOST for drinking water of the higher quality (the water absolutely safe for human health);
– GOST for bottled water.
This Standard should be extended to all economic entities producing
drinking water by way of centralized water supply or by means of water
pouring points (including pump rooms points and movable ones), the use
of plants, other means of noncentralized water supply, and the
bottling of drinking water. In developing the Standard with respect to
regulatory requirements to the water of the centralized drinking water
supply general provisions and regulatory requirements to the quality
of drinking water, which are accepted in the European Union, the WHO,
the Codex Alimentaris, etc. were taken into account.
The first fundamental difference of this Standard is a normative
substantiation of a new conceptual approach to water supply of
Ukraine’s population with quality drinking water providing for sparing
water supply by differentiation of standards for the drinking water
supply into physiological, sanitary-hygienic, and household human
needs for one twenty-four hour period in a specific locality.
The second fundamental difference of this Standard is the fact that
the main emphasis was made on new approaches to the assessment of the
quality of drinking water by integral indicators of water toxicity,
which is established by the methods of biotesting by standardization
techniques. It makes it possible to obtain an objective piece of
information on the quality of drinking water before carrying out a
detailed analysis by all indicators. Such an analysis is expedient in
the case of detecting toxicity and necessity of finding causes of its
emergence.
The third fundamental difference of this Standard is the requirement
of a complete absence of all toxic chemical and biological
contaminants in drinking water intended for consumption by man. It
includes fundamentally new and very effective integral methods of
water quality control (Arkhipchuk, V.V. and Goncharuk, V.V., Khimiya i
Tekhnologiya Vody , 2001, vol. 23, no. 5, pp. 531–544; Arkhipchuk,
V.V. and Goncharuk, V.V., ibid., 2004, vol. 26, no. 4, pp. 404–414;
Goncharuk, V.V., et al., Visnyk NAN Ukrainy, 2005, no. 3,
pp. 47–58). The proposed integral methods of biotesting are intended
for detecting acute toxicity at the level of organism and chemical
toxicity at the cellular level using for this purpose cytogenetic
methods on biological objects. These methods are universal for all
kinds and types of toxic compounds irrespective of their origin and
nature of actions.
We have conducted a complex assessment, by the degree of toxicity, of
drinking bottled non-gassed waters most spread in Ukraine and Russia
by four categories: safe, unsafe (reverse toxicity), dangerous and
very dan gerous (toxic) water (table). In the waters Gornaya
Vershina and tap water, acute toxicity revealed itself at the level of
organisms whose death did not make it possible to assess cytogenic
deviations.
In the context of the book being reviewed in conjunction with the fact
that, as a rule, bottled water is stored for more than one month, they
are subjected to preservation. The preservatives used are toxicants
dangerous for human health. At the same time the absence of a
preservative in bottled water inevitably result in the development of
anaerobic microflora and dramatic increase of the toxicity of such
water. Therefore, the integral methods of biotesting of bottled waters
acquire a special significance.
The use of the methods of assessing the quality of drinking water by
integral indicators proposed by us make it possible within short time
and the smallest economic costs to estimate the suitability of
drinking water for human consumption.
Based on the above, I believe it is expedient to recommend that the
international community consider the possibility of using new
fundamental approaches to the assessment of the drinking water quality
by the method of biotesting developed in Ukraine and the introduction
of the integral method of biotesting to the Interna tional
Standards. Our proposals are backed by the fact that the control of
more than 40 million of different chemical compounds, known to date in
the world, which were obtained mainly in the pharmaceutical and
agroindustrial sectors (annually more than 2 million new compounds are
synthesized), does not seem possible since synergism of the action and
the processes of biodegradation are unpredictable.
V.V. Goncharuk
Journal of Water Chemistry and Technology, 2011, Vol. 33 No. 2, pp. 130-133
