Mineral and Thermal Groundwater Resources

✍ Scribed by Marius Albu, David Banks, Harriet Nash (auth.)

• Publisher: Springer Netherlands
• Year: 1997
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 459
• Edition: 1
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

Is it not generally believed that our town is a healthy place . . . a place highly com­ mended on this score both for the sick andfor the healthy? . . And then these Baths - the so-called 'artery' of the town, or the 'nerve centre' . . . Do you know what they are in reality, these great and splendid and glorious Baths that have cost so much money? . . A most serious danger to health! All that filth up in Melledal, where there's such an awful stench - it's all seeping into the pipes that lead to the pump-room! Henrik Ibsen, An Enemy of the People, 1882 Henrik Ibsen gave the 'truth about mineral water' more than 100 years ago in An Enemy of the People. His examples came not from the decadent bathing spas of Bohemia or Victorian Britain, but from the very edge of polite society, subarctic Norway! His masterpiece illustrates the central role that groundwaters and, in particular, mineral waters have played in the history of humanity: their economic importance for towns, their magnetism for pilgrims searching for cures, the political intrigues, the arguments over purported beneficent or maleficent health effects and, finally, their contami­ nation by anthropogenic activity, in Ibsen's case by wastes from a tannery. This book addresses the occurrence, properties and uses of mineral and thermal groundwaters. The use of these resources for heating, personal hygiene, curative and recreational purposes is deeply integrated in the history of civilization.

✦ Table of Contents

Front Matter....Pages i-xiv
Front Matter....Pages 1-1
History of mineral and thermal waters....Pages 3-20
Uses of mineral and thermal waters....Pages 21-47
Hydrogeochemistry and origin of mineral waters....Pages 48-100
Thermal water systems....Pages 101-118
Investigation of mineral and thermal water systems....Pages 119-144
Modelling of groundwater systems....Pages 145-160
Exploitation and management of mineral and thermal waters....Pages 161-189
Environmental issues and conservation....Pages 190-202
Front Matter....Pages 203-203
Geothermal energy in Iceland....Pages 205-234
The spas of England....Pages 235-280
Geothermal and mineral water resources of Lithuania....Pages 281-316
Natural mineral waters of Mineralnye Vody region of north Caucasus, CIS....Pages 317-330
Geological, hydrochemical, regulatory and economic aspects of natural packaged water production: Nordland County, Norway....Pages 331-356
The mineral and thermal waters of the Krušné Hory rift valley, Czech Republic....Pages 357-375
The spa of Buziaş, Romania....Pages 376-388
Optimization of exploitation of geothermal reservoirs in the Pannonian Basin, Romania....Pages 389-405
Back Matter....Pages 406-447

✦ Subjects

Hydrogeology; Earth Sciences, general; Geophysics/Geodesy