Les eaux thermo-minérales Suivi de la ressource et objectifs de protection

Thermo-mineral waters : Resource follow-up and protection objectives

¹ Division Nationale des Eaux Minérales et Thermales
² BRGM - Service EAU - Antenne Eau Minérale

Abstract

The natural mineral waters are groundwaters, by definition, naturally protected. The mineral water layers, exploited for the needs for hydrotherapy or bottling, can however be subjected to the multiple aggressions of human pollution (urban, industrial and agricultural). This is why the protection of the mineral water layers is posted like a priority by many owners. This protection is all the more essential as no curative treatment is authorized for mineral water. Thus to ensure the safeguarding of the quality of mineral water constitutes an action impossible to circumvent for perennializing the activity. In this context, the reinforcement of the qualitative follow-up of the exploited resource, in particular of taken water, tends to spread so as to make sure that the mineral water preserves an always stable quality in time. The follow-up of the resource must be reinforced not only on the level of the procedures of qualification of the sources but also in the course of exploitation of emergences (self-monitoring). The instrumentation of the works of exploitation allows, by a suitable data processing, to check, in real time, that no drift of the physicochemical quality of a water occurs. This follow-up is essential to guarantee the quality of the product, it takes part, moreover, with the total protection of the layers by anticipation on the possible disorders. The follow-up should not however occult the need for supplementing always knowledge on the layers, of impluvium to emergence, in order to appreciate the weaknesses of the system and the points which deserve a greater vigilance.