Abstract
Bottled waters have been becoming increasingly popular in Korea over the last two decades due to the high demand for safe drinking water. Hydrochemical characterization of groundwater is essential for understanding quality properties of bottled waters. We investigated hydrochemistry of 60 manufacture factories for bottled waters in relation to geology. The mean EC value is highest in groundwaters of Ogcheon metamorphic rocks (213.6 μS/cm) > Precambrian gneiss (177.8 μS/cm) > Cretaceous granite (160.4 μS/cm) > Jurassic granite (131.3 μS/cm) > Quaternary Jeju Island volcanic rocks (99.2 μS/cm). The groundwater types are commonly classified as Ca-HCO3, Ca-Na-HCO3, or Ca-Mg-HCO3 types depending on bed rocks. Based on correlation matrix, the groundwater chemistry was controlled by water–rock interactions. We established relationships between groundwater compositions and bedrock geology in Korea.
Highlights
There has been increasing concern worldwide about the quality of drinking water
The groundwater types are commonly classified as Ca-HCO3, Ca-Na-HCO3, or Ca-Mg-HCO3 types depending on bed rocks
Positive correlations for alkali and alkaline earth elements such as K, Na, Ca, Mg with HCO3 are mostly related to water–rock interaction of silicate minerals and carbonate minerals [42]
Summary
There has been increasing concern worldwide about the quality of drinking water. Likewise, bottled waters have been becoming increasingly popular in Korea over the last two decades due to the high demand for safe drinking water. The nationwide consumption of bottled waters in Korea has been increased since the late 1990s. The production quantities of the domestic bottled groundwater market have increased manifold over the past 20 years: 0.89 million m3 /d in 1995, 1.20 million m3 /d in 2000, and 3,600,000 m3 /d in. The market size of the Korea bottled water has almost quadrupled in the same period: 129 million USD (US dollar) in 2000, 291 million USD in 2010, and 610 million USD in 2015, respectively. It is expected that the total production in the market amounts to 870 million USD in
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