Regulations for calcium, magnesium or hardness in drinking water in the European Union member states
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5. Discussion
Common EU Drinking Water Directive 98/83/EC in effect since 1998 does not oblige member states to regulate Ca, Mg or TH. Nevertheless, 12 (43%) member states still regulate these important water elements through law, and an additional six (21%) cover the issue with some kind of technical guidance. Only eight countries have no regulation, guidance or educational information. Some member states, abandoned their regulations not within the 1998–2000 transposition 4 period of the directive 98/83/EC, but much later, e.g. France in 2007 or Denmark in 2017. The former French regulation required TH > 1.5 mmol/L for softened water and the current one only specifies that drinking water has to be at the “calcio- carbonic balance or slightly scaling up”, and also must not be aggressive or corrosive. The former Danish regulation for water softening units recommended a minimum TH 0.9 mmol/L and range of 0.9–5.4 mmol/ L because of the risk of corrosion. Estonia, which joined the EU only in 2004, regulated excessive TH before accession, but deleted this para- meter during the transposition of the EU directive. The rationale for current national regulations for water Mg, Ca or TH in the EU member states is primarily to either prevent pipe corro- sion or scaling. Although beneficial health aspects of these water ele- ments are specifically mentioned in several regulations or guidelines (e. g. in the UK, the Netherlands, Poland or Finland), the limits often do not correspond with established literature as mostly only TH limits are provided. If we are concerned about health benefits and the recent scientific evidence, concentrations of Ca and Mg in water should be considered. From this perspective, only Czech Republic and Slovakia have established minimum and optimum limits and ranges considering primarily health based values for Mg and Ca and secondarily derived values for TH from figures on Mg and Ca. Individual households may employ water treatment to remove Ca and Mg. Although this is outside the scope and responsibility of public water supplier, it is important to educate the public about the removal of Ca and Mg, because water treated by reverse osmosis even after artificial “re-mineralization” usually has negligible levels of essential minerals and dissolved solids (i.e. Ca less than 3–5 mg/L, Mg less than 1–2 mg/L, and TDS less than 20 mg/L). Some countries inform the general public about the risk of excessive Ca/Mg removal (e.g. Luxembourg and the UK) and benefit of these elements in water (Ireland). Download 0.53 Mb. Do'stlaringiz bilan baham: |
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