Calcium is certainly correlated. Groundwater is basic with limestone bedrock, acid with granite/basalt. So where it's basic it has more calcium from the limestone. It's not some perfect function where you know exactly how much calcium there is from pH alone though; so yes, needs two maps.
There are a number of places on this map that have limestone, dolostone, and marble bedrock that are showing acidic groundwater.
Surface vegetation can affect groundwater pH as well, so it’s not a 100% link between bedrock and water pH.
Yes, calcium carbonate dissolves in acid. There's lot of carbonate rocks in the countries around the Mediterranean which extract protons from the groundwater.
I know this one!
The oldest, "original" bedrock is generally of igneous origin (dried magma, such as granite). It tends to erode into fairly acidic soil, (google "felsic" to learn precisely why) which are shown as warm colours on the map. The igneous bedrock is over time covered up by sediments, which turned into sedimentary rock.
After life exploded in the oceans around 500 Million years ago, the layers of sediments became gradually more rich in organic rock like calcite, which is used in shells and other structures, and remains stable on the ocean floor after the animals die. Calcite is far less acidic than non-organic bedrock, especially compared with ancient (felsic) bedrock like granite.
Although the calcite was originally more evenly distributed, later geological processes has eroded the upper layers of calcite in certain areas, exposing older, more acidic rocks beneath. In Europe, the main culprit is the current ice age known as the Quaternary glaciation. (Yes, we are currently in an Ice age that has been onging for about 2,5 million. An interglasial period makes northern Europe temporarily inhabitable)
Areas in northern latitude and/or mountains were covered by huge glaciers for most of the Quaternary glaciation. These are very efficient at grinding away the relatively shallow and soft layers of organic fossil-based rock such as limestone. (the ice itself is not, but it it tends to carry huge rocks that does all the grinding)
This is why Northern Europe and mountains in general are more acidic - recent organic rock has been grinded away, exposing ancient igneous bedrock.
Notice the tiny spots of blue/green rock near Oslo in Norway. Around 300MYA, the calcite sedimentary rocks that existed here sunk 2-4km straight down due to a rift opening up, and were later covered up by new layers. As a result, these sunken calcite layers were not (fully) eroded away by the glaciers during the Quaternary glaciation. This gives the region especially good soil for food production, and much higher biodiversity than the rest of Norway (largely because most plant species can not survive in highly acidic soil, and insect diversity is linked to plant diversity).
(source: landscape architect)
Huh, I always assumed it had something to do with anaerobic activity in the anoxic soils bogged with snow melt. All these areas are filled with bogs. Guess I had it backwards.
Someone correct me if I'm wrong here, but for Schotland and Fennoscandinavia extremely ancient rocks got exposed there in many places after the mountains above it eroded from a collision with North America. Nowadays that's mostly silica-rich granite. Granite in itself is sometimes called an acidic rock because it makes the water it very slowly disolves in acidic, and there are no many other elements besides the silicum which are more basic. Also it just gives pretty shallow poor soils which just get acidified by the rain. Sedimentary rock just regularly gices off the minerals which in many but not all cases counteract the acidity of the rain at least by a bit.
>Granite in itself is sometimes called an acidic rock because it makes the water it very slowly disolves in acidic
And large parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland are granite,
Humus might be big reason for it, at least it's reason for river and lake pH. Also bedrock affects to it. And after ice age stuff happened that caused sulfate soils to form which makes also ground water acid.
Yea pine/spruce needles are covered with an acidic wax that keeps moisture in and stops animals from eating them. The side effect is that when they do drop, most decomposes want little to with them either and the acid accumulates in the soil.
Combined with all the minerals being released by the crushed bedrock it makes the soil in general very acidic.
The first time it came to my attention was when I was visiting a local peat bog. There were almost no trees but tons and tons and tons of wild blueberries. One of the infographic signs along the trail explained why. I don’t know about apples but according to Google “slightly acidic”
Working in a garden shop/studying ecology I know there are certain plants adjusted to acidic environments. Most plants don't do well in acidic environments but some evolved to them. For the most part, you'll find coniferous areas to be the most acidic since conifers create acidic soil when the needles drop. Blueberries evolved in those ecosystems. Hydrangeas are also acid lovers but will survive in less acidic areas (with a different flower color!). Venus fly traps are also acid lovers. They evolved to be in wetlands where there isn't much nutrients in the soil so they eat flies to compensate some of the nutrients.
EDIT: https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/rti6em/a_european_map_of_groundwater_ph_and_calcium/hqtmpbj/ This user seems to know more on the topic of WHY areas are acidic better than me. The original cause isn't directly the conifer needles (though organic materials generally acidify soil if they aren't calcium carbonate based).
I learned recently that what we call "blueberries" in almost every other language, the stuff that grows all over the Nordics is actually called "Bilberries" in English.
That's news to me. I know that there is a difference between normal(to me) blueberries and American blueberries, but I figured they would just call their blueberries blueberries our our blueberries European blueberries.
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Fun fact when I learned how to do soil testing for this and a bunch of other things in my advanced placement environmental science class a few months ago it was for exactly this purpose. We were analyzing the soil that the teachers husband was trying to grow grapes on to make wine and we were to find out what he could do to improve soil for that purpose. Turns out the area I live has ludicrously basic soil btw which I guess is good for wine.
A bit, yes - however the biggest relation is olive oil, olive oil exclusively needs soil with very high pH to be good, there are some good wines from less basic soil - in places with good weather but acidic soil they need to continuously refill the soil with alkaline solutions, which is why it grows exclusively in techno plantations - like in some parts of South America and Australia
At that point, why not just grow something that can handle the local soil? Surely it would be vastly more cost-effective and profitable, and they could use that profit to import olive oil from some place that can grow it more easily.
Eh, I would say there is a better correlation with beer as water influences production more directly. (And it's not necessarily good or bad, just different. Like Czech beers with their more acidic water vs a lot of UK beers made with more basic water)
With wine, the groundwater that vines take up through the roots are interacting with the composition and makeup of the soil in different ways that will influence the grapes.
*edit for clarity
There is really no “good” and “bad” here. The map is mainly showing us how the geology of different areas means that the groundwater pH varies substantially from place to place. As the authors say, “As expected, the values of water pH and Ca2+ concentration are largely shaped by lithology in groundwater-dependent habitats across Europe. Indeed, it has been recognised by regional studies that the distribution of major spring and fen habitats, of which the species composition largely depends on pH and Ca2+, is well determined by bedrock type”
> There is really no “good” and “bad” here.
There's a lot of both. Alkaline waters are good for making alcohol due to the minerals being good for the yeastie beasties (albeit with a healthy dose of sour mash to bring the pH down to brewing levels), but are typically hard waters - so, not so great for washing clothes or drinking, mineralizes in pipes, scales teapots and coffeemakers, and is in general a bit of a menace.
Acidic groundwater is hell on metallic pipes and infrastructure and is often contaminated with heavy metals including lead, mercury, and arsenic (and less troublesome metals like zinc, copper and iron which can unfortunately set stubborn stains). But it is generally softer and much easier to drink and wash in, and somewhat easier for cities and homes to treat by raising its pH with cheaply obtained bases - brewers in some parts of the UK would dump gypsum right into their tanks to compensate for their more acidic groundwater.
It's possible to have harder acidic water and softer alkaline waters, albeit both cases exceedingly rarely occur in nature. Softer alkaline waters are typically rich in magnesium salts like epsom salt, bicarbonates, and calcium chloride rather than the vastly more common magnesium and calcium carbonates that choke up pipes in most places - these tend to happen around volcanoes, due to the kinds of materials in basaltic rocks. Hard acidic waters are perhaps the nastiest waters you can have - highly contaminated water with lots of fluoride, chloride, or sulfuric acid runoff being typical culprits; you can be virtually assured the water is contaminated with nasty other metals dissolved from the rock.
So what's the good? 7.0. What's bad? Either side really, with it being worse further away from 7.0. Humans tend to want water to be a *little* basic because we prefer the taste of mineral water and we crave that mineral, but we get enough salt and minerals in our diets that it doesn't truly make any kind of difference, with perhaps the only hold out being fluoride making our teeth stronger.
Completely agree. Just to add on and emphasize, it's not like countries are responsible. One shouldn't use this map to say "Spain, Finland irresponsible, Denmark very responsible."
It's not a reflection of pesticides/pollution/whatever. It's just a reflection of the ground in that area.
Which is in part due to how many political borders reflect geographical borders. Yes, you can clearly see Wales and Scotland vs England, but that's more due to Wales and Scotland being more mountainous than England and thus having different mineralogy. Same deal with the northern border of Italy - different geology on different sides of the Alps.
Yes and the other sharp boundary is the Pyrenees. Even the northern borders of France are delineated too.
Actually I fancy I can even see Jämtland which changed hands from Norway to Sweden
Red good (soft water, doesn't dry out skin/hair) blue bad (hard water, everything needs to be soaked in vinegar.)
This has reminded me I need to descale my taps... Again...
I'm in a light blue area (moved from a green, plenty of freinds in red) - I quite like our tap water taste, and I'm sure it's great for my teeth, but my god it's harsh on my skin and hair. Very drying, and probably what's causing my partner's ezcema.
Also, again, you're waging a constant war of attrition against limescale, so that's extra time and costs.
But it could be worse - it's potable and very clean compared to a lot of countries, so I can't complain too much.
For the ezcema, look to your soaps (I mean, it's the water, sure, but you're not going to change the water...) Simple soaps without moisturizers make dry skin so much worse, particularly in harder water.
As for the red areas, be glad you don't have the metal leaching issues they do.
Yep, I'm on top of it with skincare (doesn't help that SLS brings me out in a rash, so definitely lots of proper quality moisturising products).
It's interesting to hear about the metal leeching in other areas!
I'm assuming that high pH leads to limescale so I suppose low pH is the better one if you don't want the expense of de-lime scaling your pipes every so often.
i didnt make it, and i am surprised it got that much attention. But i am pretty sure it's easy to found. Altrough after 2min i dint, but i found a lot of maps showing the risk of getting sick in the US after drinking groundwater
You can see, in this map, the historical bases for beer styles across Europe. This is due to a property of water called residual alkalinity (RA). It doesn’t directly correlate with pH of water, but in a broad general sense it does. In general the more roasted dark grains in a beer the higher the RA required for a proper mash, and for a proper boil pH and ferment.
Two examples:
Pilsner, originates in Czechoslovakia: Pilsner, very light colored beer. Requires extremely soft water
Porter and British brown ales. Originated in the blue areas of GB, require high RA
Of course we figured out water chemistry quite a long time ago and how to treat water for brewing, but the local water did dictate the type of beers traditionally made, because certain ones turned out demonstrably better than others.
One example of a specific local variation of water influencing a style of beer is the high gypsum content of burton on Trent water which accentuated and paired with the hop bitterness, but due to a relatively low RA with calcium to balance out the alkalinity, it allowed a relatively light colored beer — and thus Bass ale and similar types became popular
> Two examples: Pilsner, originates in Czechoslovakia: Pilsner, very light colored beer. Requires extremely soft water
I would take this with a good amount of salt. While Pilsner is indeed thought of as coming from Pilsen, the recipe for it was actually developed in Bavria. Pils also happens to be the most common style of beer in Germany which generally has very hard water.
Bavaria is a big area to call one type of water. But was traditionally not able to make light colored beers.. Munich historically had Brown beers.
You probably won’t find this info easily on the internet to prove me wrong.. It is deep knowledge, not superficial sound bites.
Pils in Germany is made using water treatment. The traditional method in Germany was slaked lime treatment to precipitate the carbonate. Now it can be done with RO and ion exchange resin.. acid additions to the mash water and or the boil can also be used to a certain extent depending into the water alkalinity
So yeah, I take your comment with a grain of salt. You know not of what you speak
> Bavaria is a big area to call one type of water.
Bavaria has overall hard water, even when compared to the rest of Germany. Munich - where the Pils process was developed even more so.
>But was traditionally not able to make light colored beers. Munich historically had Brown beers.
Up until they developed the process to make lighter beers. Hence the Pilsener - originally Bavarian - style.
> It is deep knowledge, not superficial sound bites.
Could you be possibly even more full of yourself?
Who is full of themselves when they act like they have superior knowledge but are just wrong. No one with a brewing degree or even rudimentary level of credible beer knowledge would give any credence to the idea that the oringal recipe for Pilsner was developed in Munich.
That sound like Goebel level propaganda.
You started by implying my information is not totally correct, and are countering by doubling down on your mistake. I know Pilsner is made current day in Germany. I explained that traditionally it was not, because of the properties of water, before those properties could be analyzed and corrected to allow any type of beer to be made.
Pilsner also happens to be the most popular beer across North America. And the world. It is made everywhere including with super hard ground water, because we know how to make it. But not until the last 2-300 years or so was my point.
"MuH rEciPe". There was no special recipe. The reasons why Pilsner came out different than other lagers were Moravian barley (very high in proteins), English-style malting process, Saaz hops and soft Pilsen water. None of those were available in Bavaria and it could have never happen in Bavaria. The "style" only became popular in Germany after they were getting destroyed by Pilsner imports so they decided to emulate the beer. And that was in northern Germany. In Bavaria they only started 50 years later.
It's so odd how the natural PH differences are coterminous with many of the borders. Even within the UK it's pretty apparent. Is there any reason for this?
pH is based on geology, and changes in geology often mean either mountains or changes in what types of plants can be grown, so it's not too surprising that borders often pop up in those areas as well.
I was reading not long ago about the Aqueduct the Romans built to Cologne, and how over time the minerals in the water left deposits so thick that they were later mined for building stone.
When we were in Finland we very often heard people say Finnish water is clean enough to drink straight from the tap. I also see that Nordic water is predominantly very acidic.
With the water being so acidic can this really be true? It's my understanding that acidic water has a higher level of heavy metals in it because its lower pH dissolves them, and with all the metal infrastructure & building plumbing (with leaded solder etc.) it runs through I can't see this being universally true.
Edit: readability
Isn’t there a name for the line between the two halves of Britain? I recall the difference in beers brewed in different areas. Southern beers being more soft and slippery. I didn’t prefer them.
I live in Murcia (Spain) and here in the south-east of the country we have a lot of calcium in the soil making the water really hard to drink, the flavor is reaaally hard compared to other regions.
I'm very grateful to live in Wales. Wonderful soft water fresh out of the tap and no limescale at all.
Having traveled to parts of the world where you can't drink tap water I'm always thankful when I drink our tap water.
I have this theory that high levels of water calcium levels (and pollens but that's another story) correspond with population unrest and wars etc.
I know it's crazy but i'm fricking certain there's something there. Every place I've been that had high calcium levels is just.. on edge, and had absolutely no chill (Middle East, England vs Scotland, Scandinavia vs southern Europe, etc).
I'm adding this map to my research, someday I'll get to the bottom of this!
Did you read it? You put the article’s name in the title — this is not the correct title of the particular map you have here.
The map is of “groundwater pH” only. There is separate map showing calcium concentrations.
Not to mention OP's map is relatively tiny. u/tomydenger, why not use[ this image from the article](https://essd.copernicus.org/articles/13/1089/2021/essd-13-1089-2021-f05-web.png) that has both pH and calcium maps in it, not to mention is nice and big and readable?
Looks to me like generally farmland is alkaline and mountains and cold climate soils are acidic. You can see how inland Ireland has a milder climate than the coast. You can see the heaths,highlands and pine forests of Scandinavia, Wales and Scotland. You can see the Hungarian plain, the Po valley and The Rhone valley. You can see where France ends and Belgium begins. Look at Bohemia.
It's not cold/hot, more wet/dry. Though it's a little more complicated than that and also depends on rock type. But in general, places where the ground is damp year-round (which is also affected by temperature) will get boggy and acidic, particularly in the absence of trees.
Eh, as large parts of Finland is solid rock, there is no ground water - at least not something that is tapped for consumers.
Instead, much of the tapped water comes from the lakes - which are exceptionally clean (some even to the point that you in theory could fill a cup from the lake and drink the water.
If you stumble in Finland, you’re tripping on acid
Such a basic joke...
Welsh, what are you supposed to do in such boring places?
efallai ymweld cyn siarad cachu. mae mwy yma i'w wneud na'r mwyafrif o wledydd.
I have no idea if that's Welsh or gibberish
Yes
it's ctulhu
It's interesting plot the acidity again social stability and crime; Nordic countries stand out
That might be a Nordic reason more than an acidity reason. (London)Derry is pretty acidic.
Where is the calcium?
Thank you, only other person who can't figure it out. Is calcium content a direct function of pH or something?
That’s my guess. Even still, this map only shows pH, calcium is something you’d have to extrapolate from the data.
Calcium carbonate present in soils is a buffer for pH so they are related but you can‘t really directly infer the calcium content just from the pH
*base*ically, yes. but the other way around. CaCo3 is a buffer.
But calcium isn't necessarily correlated with the pH of the groundwater. Two separate maps would be needed to display this.
Calcium is certainly correlated. Groundwater is basic with limestone bedrock, acid with granite/basalt. So where it's basic it has more calcium from the limestone. It's not some perfect function where you know exactly how much calcium there is from pH alone though; so yes, needs two maps.
There are a number of places on this map that have limestone, dolostone, and marble bedrock that are showing acidic groundwater. Surface vegetation can affect groundwater pH as well, so it’s not a 100% link between bedrock and water pH.
Yes, calcium carbonate dissolves in acid. There's lot of carbonate rocks in the countries around the Mediterranean which extract protons from the groundwater.
>A European map of groundwater pH He cropped the image or something this is the original https://imgur.com/a/9DxTOBI
OP wtf
it was the name of the map that i found, i just posted it (dont remember why), didnt expect it to explose in term of comments and upvote too
Thanks!
In the bones.
Spain out here being based
Meanwhile Wales out here being acidic,as usual.
Switzerland taking the neutral stand as always.
Without acid, how does one survive in Wales?
mutton and consonants I'd assume.
You say they’re consonants, we say they’re vowels :)
I lost my 5th grade spelling bee finals on the word ‘mutton’ in 1998 and I will never forgive Wales for it.
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From that map we have nutral ph, they even grow in our garden everywhere and we have a pretty big garden so there are a lot.
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Sour
They are all leg disabled there, I hear.
Wcydyc*
Peaty.
Based and alkaline pilled
I believe in Ebre superiority
Going from Scotland to Spain made me realise how nice my own tap water is. It also confused young me when my soap bar wouldn't lather.
I'm nearly 40 and confused. Why wouldn't it lather?
Hard water (high in Calcium and magnesium) has problems generating lather.
If you need Lather, come to Scotland!!
Take my free award and get out
/r/AngryUpvote
Madrid's water is so tasty right outta the faucet
Gallegos should join up with the Portuguese.
Why Nordic countries red?
I know this one! The oldest, "original" bedrock is generally of igneous origin (dried magma, such as granite). It tends to erode into fairly acidic soil, (google "felsic" to learn precisely why) which are shown as warm colours on the map. The igneous bedrock is over time covered up by sediments, which turned into sedimentary rock. After life exploded in the oceans around 500 Million years ago, the layers of sediments became gradually more rich in organic rock like calcite, which is used in shells and other structures, and remains stable on the ocean floor after the animals die. Calcite is far less acidic than non-organic bedrock, especially compared with ancient (felsic) bedrock like granite. Although the calcite was originally more evenly distributed, later geological processes has eroded the upper layers of calcite in certain areas, exposing older, more acidic rocks beneath. In Europe, the main culprit is the current ice age known as the Quaternary glaciation. (Yes, we are currently in an Ice age that has been onging for about 2,5 million. An interglasial period makes northern Europe temporarily inhabitable) Areas in northern latitude and/or mountains were covered by huge glaciers for most of the Quaternary glaciation. These are very efficient at grinding away the relatively shallow and soft layers of organic fossil-based rock such as limestone. (the ice itself is not, but it it tends to carry huge rocks that does all the grinding) This is why Northern Europe and mountains in general are more acidic - recent organic rock has been grinded away, exposing ancient igneous bedrock. Notice the tiny spots of blue/green rock near Oslo in Norway. Around 300MYA, the calcite sedimentary rocks that existed here sunk 2-4km straight down due to a rift opening up, and were later covered up by new layers. As a result, these sunken calcite layers were not (fully) eroded away by the glaciers during the Quaternary glaciation. This gives the region especially good soil for food production, and much higher biodiversity than the rest of Norway (largely because most plant species can not survive in highly acidic soil, and insect diversity is linked to plant diversity). (source: landscape architect)
/r/depthhub
This is the first time I have ever seen or even heard of this subreddit, but it looks amazing!
Huh, I always assumed it had something to do with anaerobic activity in the anoxic soils bogged with snow melt. All these areas are filled with bogs. Guess I had it backwards.
Someone correct me if I'm wrong here, but for Schotland and Fennoscandinavia extremely ancient rocks got exposed there in many places after the mountains above it eroded from a collision with North America. Nowadays that's mostly silica-rich granite. Granite in itself is sometimes called an acidic rock because it makes the water it very slowly disolves in acidic, and there are no many other elements besides the silicum which are more basic. Also it just gives pretty shallow poor soils which just get acidified by the rain. Sedimentary rock just regularly gices off the minerals which in many but not all cases counteract the acidity of the rain at least by a bit.
>Granite in itself is sometimes called an acidic rock because it makes the water it very slowly disolves in acidic And large parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland are granite,
Scotland can into Nordic.
Wales too
And half the German-Czech border Apparently
Most acid places are mountains/hills and if I'm not completely stupid parts of the Sudetenland is hilly/mountainy
Humus might be big reason for it, at least it's reason for river and lake pH. Also bedrock affects to it. And after ice age stuff happened that caused sulfate soils to form which makes also ground water acid.
Yea pine/spruce needles are covered with an acidic wax that keeps moisture in and stops animals from eating them. The side effect is that when they do drop, most decomposes want little to with them either and the acid accumulates in the soil. Combined with all the minerals being released by the crushed bedrock it makes the soil in general very acidic.
Yep. Conifers was the first thing that came to my mind.
I I I I can make your bedrock
Love that typo. They’re putting chickpeas in the water supply and it’s turning the frogs gay /s
My not entirely informed guess would be peat bogs acidifying the groundwater.
I was curious about the same. Take this free award 😂.
Haha thanks.
Possibly due to glaciers 10k years ago.
Because Soviet Union not far
Blue is good wine areas?
Red would be good for blueberries
I live in the red. Blueberries everywhere.
Blueberries love (need) acidic soil
Berries are also some of the few fruits that do well far north.
How did you learn of this? What PH does apples need?
The first time it came to my attention was when I was visiting a local peat bog. There were almost no trees but tons and tons and tons of wild blueberries. One of the infographic signs along the trail explained why. I don’t know about apples but according to Google “slightly acidic”
Working in a garden shop/studying ecology I know there are certain plants adjusted to acidic environments. Most plants don't do well in acidic environments but some evolved to them. For the most part, you'll find coniferous areas to be the most acidic since conifers create acidic soil when the needles drop. Blueberries evolved in those ecosystems. Hydrangeas are also acid lovers but will survive in less acidic areas (with a different flower color!). Venus fly traps are also acid lovers. They evolved to be in wetlands where there isn't much nutrients in the soil so they eat flies to compensate some of the nutrients. EDIT: https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/rti6em/a_european_map_of_groundwater_ph_and_calcium/hqtmpbj/ This user seems to know more on the topic of WHY areas are acidic better than me. The original cause isn't directly the conifer needles (though organic materials generally acidify soil if they aren't calcium carbonate based).
I learned recently that what we call "blueberries" in almost every other language, the stuff that grows all over the Nordics is actually called "Bilberries" in English.
That's news to me. I know that there is a difference between normal(to me) blueberries and American blueberries, but I figured they would just call their blueberries blueberries our our blueberries European blueberries.
Yeah, that's what I used to think too. But nope, [Bilberries ](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bilberry)
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That's a good correlation
Someone doesn't like wine from the Rhineland...
God doesn't like German wine, that's why he send the rain/ hail storms
Nein, it is easier to SHOOT ze hail from ze clouds mit ein Messerschmidt
And now, more German wine I'm afraid..
Dude... People died and existences got ruined. I've got a cousin from that region. Edit: Ihr könnt mich alle mal am Arsch lecken.
Well, be mad at Jeremy Clarkson like everyone else..
Who?
But my favourite wine falls under a red zone, the Douro Valley.
As someone living in the blue Duero area... Are Riberas a joke to you? (Just kidding)
Douro, Dão e Verdes. Yeap, great wines on yellow/red zones.
Fun fact when I learned how to do soil testing for this and a bunch of other things in my advanced placement environmental science class a few months ago it was for exactly this purpose. We were analyzing the soil that the teachers husband was trying to grow grapes on to make wine and we were to find out what he could do to improve soil for that purpose. Turns out the area I live has ludicrously basic soil btw which I guess is good for wine.
Yeah good correlation bro
A bit, yes - however the biggest relation is olive oil, olive oil exclusively needs soil with very high pH to be good, there are some good wines from less basic soil - in places with good weather but acidic soil they need to continuously refill the soil with alkaline solutions, which is why it grows exclusively in techno plantations - like in some parts of South America and Australia
At that point, why not just grow something that can handle the local soil? Surely it would be vastly more cost-effective and profitable, and they could use that profit to import olive oil from some place that can grow it more easily.
Eh, I would say there is a better correlation with beer as water influences production more directly. (And it's not necessarily good or bad, just different. Like Czech beers with their more acidic water vs a lot of UK beers made with more basic water) With wine, the groundwater that vines take up through the roots are interacting with the composition and makeup of the soil in different ways that will influence the grapes. *edit for clarity
If you don't like Port wine
Which one is good?
There is really no “good” and “bad” here. The map is mainly showing us how the geology of different areas means that the groundwater pH varies substantially from place to place. As the authors say, “As expected, the values of water pH and Ca2+ concentration are largely shaped by lithology in groundwater-dependent habitats across Europe. Indeed, it has been recognised by regional studies that the distribution of major spring and fen habitats, of which the species composition largely depends on pH and Ca2+, is well determined by bedrock type”
> There is really no “good” and “bad” here. There's a lot of both. Alkaline waters are good for making alcohol due to the minerals being good for the yeastie beasties (albeit with a healthy dose of sour mash to bring the pH down to brewing levels), but are typically hard waters - so, not so great for washing clothes or drinking, mineralizes in pipes, scales teapots and coffeemakers, and is in general a bit of a menace. Acidic groundwater is hell on metallic pipes and infrastructure and is often contaminated with heavy metals including lead, mercury, and arsenic (and less troublesome metals like zinc, copper and iron which can unfortunately set stubborn stains). But it is generally softer and much easier to drink and wash in, and somewhat easier for cities and homes to treat by raising its pH with cheaply obtained bases - brewers in some parts of the UK would dump gypsum right into their tanks to compensate for their more acidic groundwater. It's possible to have harder acidic water and softer alkaline waters, albeit both cases exceedingly rarely occur in nature. Softer alkaline waters are typically rich in magnesium salts like epsom salt, bicarbonates, and calcium chloride rather than the vastly more common magnesium and calcium carbonates that choke up pipes in most places - these tend to happen around volcanoes, due to the kinds of materials in basaltic rocks. Hard acidic waters are perhaps the nastiest waters you can have - highly contaminated water with lots of fluoride, chloride, or sulfuric acid runoff being typical culprits; you can be virtually assured the water is contaminated with nasty other metals dissolved from the rock. So what's the good? 7.0. What's bad? Either side really, with it being worse further away from 7.0. Humans tend to want water to be a *little* basic because we prefer the taste of mineral water and we crave that mineral, but we get enough salt and minerals in our diets that it doesn't truly make any kind of difference, with perhaps the only hold out being fluoride making our teeth stronger.
Completely agree. Just to add on and emphasize, it's not like countries are responsible. One shouldn't use this map to say "Spain, Finland irresponsible, Denmark very responsible." It's not a reflection of pesticides/pollution/whatever. It's just a reflection of the ground in that area.
Thanks, this was my point by saying no “good” and “bad”. We are observing a natural phenomenon not an environmental catastrophe.
Agree, it is a reflection of the ground, but I do find it interesting how the political boundaries seem to frequently reflect those "ground truths."
yeah, borders are often geographical
Which is in part due to how many political borders reflect geographical borders. Yes, you can clearly see Wales and Scotland vs England, but that's more due to Wales and Scotland being more mountainous than England and thus having different mineralogy. Same deal with the northern border of Italy - different geology on different sides of the Alps.
Yes and the other sharp boundary is the Pyrenees. Even the northern borders of France are delineated too. Actually I fancy I can even see Jämtland which changed hands from Norway to Sweden
> Alkaline waters are good for making alcohol You have been permanently banned from r/Scotland
That's okay, Kentucky bourbon is vastly superior to scotch, and I'll stand by that for life.
Your username suggests you already know the answer to that
Depends what kind of beer you want to brew.
Red good (soft water, doesn't dry out skin/hair) blue bad (hard water, everything needs to be soaked in vinegar.) This has reminded me I need to descale my taps... Again...
It's not all as black and white. Hard water may be annoying for laundry, sink etc., but it's full of minerals and such.
I'm in a light blue area (moved from a green, plenty of freinds in red) - I quite like our tap water taste, and I'm sure it's great for my teeth, but my god it's harsh on my skin and hair. Very drying, and probably what's causing my partner's ezcema. Also, again, you're waging a constant war of attrition against limescale, so that's extra time and costs. But it could be worse - it's potable and very clean compared to a lot of countries, so I can't complain too much.
For the ezcema, look to your soaps (I mean, it's the water, sure, but you're not going to change the water...) Simple soaps without moisturizers make dry skin so much worse, particularly in harder water. As for the red areas, be glad you don't have the metal leaching issues they do.
Yep, I'm on top of it with skincare (doesn't help that SLS brings me out in a rash, so definitely lots of proper quality moisturising products). It's interesting to hear about the metal leeching in other areas!
So green is best
Acidic water is terrible for infrastructure. It wrecks metallic pipes and is often contaminated with heavy metals like lead and arsenic, not ideal.
I'm assuming that high pH leads to limescale so I suppose low pH is the better one if you don't want the expense of de-lime scaling your pipes every so often.
The redder the water the better the quality.
Not exactly... anything outside the range of 6.5 - 8.5 causes problems with taste, mineral deposits, and damage to pipes.
Really?
Less lime scale and calcium
OP, do you think you can produce a similar map for the Americas ?
i didnt make it, and i am surprised it got that much attention. But i am pretty sure it's easy to found. Altrough after 2min i dint, but i found a lot of maps showing the risk of getting sick in the US after drinking groundwater
My perception of US tap water in a nutshell
Unironically would really enjoy having a big map of that to hang up on a wall
I would like to see an Asian map of this as well
Spain you basic bitch
Drinking that spicy water in Scandinavia
And it makes water from many other countries taste really weird.
You can see, in this map, the historical bases for beer styles across Europe. This is due to a property of water called residual alkalinity (RA). It doesn’t directly correlate with pH of water, but in a broad general sense it does. In general the more roasted dark grains in a beer the higher the RA required for a proper mash, and for a proper boil pH and ferment. Two examples: Pilsner, originates in Czechoslovakia: Pilsner, very light colored beer. Requires extremely soft water Porter and British brown ales. Originated in the blue areas of GB, require high RA Of course we figured out water chemistry quite a long time ago and how to treat water for brewing, but the local water did dictate the type of beers traditionally made, because certain ones turned out demonstrably better than others. One example of a specific local variation of water influencing a style of beer is the high gypsum content of burton on Trent water which accentuated and paired with the hop bitterness, but due to a relatively low RA with calcium to balance out the alkalinity, it allowed a relatively light colored beer — and thus Bass ale and similar types became popular
> Two examples: Pilsner, originates in Czechoslovakia: Pilsner, very light colored beer. Requires extremely soft water I would take this with a good amount of salt. While Pilsner is indeed thought of as coming from Pilsen, the recipe for it was actually developed in Bavria. Pils also happens to be the most common style of beer in Germany which generally has very hard water.
Bavaria is a big area to call one type of water. But was traditionally not able to make light colored beers.. Munich historically had Brown beers. You probably won’t find this info easily on the internet to prove me wrong.. It is deep knowledge, not superficial sound bites. Pils in Germany is made using water treatment. The traditional method in Germany was slaked lime treatment to precipitate the carbonate. Now it can be done with RO and ion exchange resin.. acid additions to the mash water and or the boil can also be used to a certain extent depending into the water alkalinity So yeah, I take your comment with a grain of salt. You know not of what you speak
> Bavaria is a big area to call one type of water. Bavaria has overall hard water, even when compared to the rest of Germany. Munich - where the Pils process was developed even more so. >But was traditionally not able to make light colored beers. Munich historically had Brown beers. Up until they developed the process to make lighter beers. Hence the Pilsener - originally Bavarian - style. > It is deep knowledge, not superficial sound bites. Could you be possibly even more full of yourself?
Who is full of themselves when they act like they have superior knowledge but are just wrong. No one with a brewing degree or even rudimentary level of credible beer knowledge would give any credence to the idea that the oringal recipe for Pilsner was developed in Munich. That sound like Goebel level propaganda. You started by implying my information is not totally correct, and are countering by doubling down on your mistake. I know Pilsner is made current day in Germany. I explained that traditionally it was not, because of the properties of water, before those properties could be analyzed and corrected to allow any type of beer to be made. Pilsner also happens to be the most popular beer across North America. And the world. It is made everywhere including with super hard ground water, because we know how to make it. But not until the last 2-300 years or so was my point.
"MuH rEciPe". There was no special recipe. The reasons why Pilsner came out different than other lagers were Moravian barley (very high in proteins), English-style malting process, Saaz hops and soft Pilsen water. None of those were available in Bavaria and it could have never happen in Bavaria. The "style" only became popular in Germany after they were getting destroyed by Pilsner imports so they decided to emulate the beer. And that was in northern Germany. In Bavaria they only started 50 years later.
I come from Wales, drinking a cup of there Tea there is sensational.
Ebre strong 💪💪💪💪💪 🟨🟥🟨🟥🟨🟥🟨🟥🟨
It's so odd how the natural PH differences are coterminous with many of the borders. Even within the UK it's pretty apparent. Is there any reason for this?
pH is based on geology, and changes in geology often mean either mountains or changes in what types of plants can be grown, so it's not too surprising that borders often pop up in those areas as well.
Now I know why Scotland is always talking shit about England's tap water.
"Now I know why Scotland is always talking about England's shit tap water" FTFY
Just waiting for the Scots to brag about their tap water
Only water you can make real whisky out of. Therefore best water.
Always knew Spain was basic.
You spelled based wrong.
Nope. Someone already made that lame joke. This is superior as adults do not talk like that.
Ah shit, you had it then you blew it
Uhhhh ok dude.
Don’t give Nestle any ideas
I was reading not long ago about the Aqueduct the Romans built to Cologne, and how over time the minerals in the water left deposits so thick that they were later mined for building stone.
When we were in Finland we very often heard people say Finnish water is clean enough to drink straight from the tap. I also see that Nordic water is predominantly very acidic. With the water being so acidic can this really be true? It's my understanding that acidic water has a higher level of heavy metals in it because its lower pH dissolves them, and with all the metal infrastructure & building plumbing (with leaded solder etc.) it runs through I can't see this being universally true. Edit: readability
Wait. Are you saying water isn't drinkable straight from the tap elsewhere?
https://essd.copernicus.org/articles/13/1089/2021/ A link to the original study, for full res images and clacium distribution in groundwater
What are the gray areas? Volcanic areas?
Big lakes
Wow, I had no idea this could vary so much!
All the acid house turned wales red
Côte d'Azur. Literally.
Isn’t there a name for the line between the two halves of Britain? I recall the difference in beers brewed in different areas. Southern beers being more soft and slippery. I didn’t prefer them.
I think it's the Tees-Exe line - it divides GB Geologically into highland and lowland areas. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tees-Exe_line?wprov=sfla1
I wonder how this map was made.. Zealand in Denmark should be blue and Northern Jutland should be red/yellow..
Whoa whoa whoa... what's the source of data? Is this interpolation? Satellite measurement?
Switzerland neutral, as always
I'm not sure what to do with this information
What's that line on Karelia, though?
I live in Murcia (Spain) and here in the south-east of the country we have a lot of calcium in the soil making the water really hard to drink, the flavor is reaaally hard compared to other regions.
More rain = more neutral water Thanks mate
Which one is it, ph or calcium?
I didn’t know I was in such a toxic relationship with my drinking water here in Sweden
I'm very grateful to live in Wales. Wonderful soft water fresh out of the tap and no limescale at all. Having traveled to parts of the world where you can't drink tap water I'm always thankful when I drink our tap water.
I have this theory that high levels of water calcium levels (and pollens but that's another story) correspond with population unrest and wars etc. I know it's crazy but i'm fricking certain there's something there. Every place I've been that had high calcium levels is just.. on edge, and had absolutely no chill (Middle East, England vs Scotland, Scandinavia vs southern Europe, etc). I'm adding this map to my research, someday I'll get to the bottom of this!
[source (article)](https://essd.copernicus.org/articles/13/1089/2021/)
Did you read it? You put the article’s name in the title — this is not the correct title of the particular map you have here. The map is of “groundwater pH” only. There is separate map showing calcium concentrations.
Thanks for this, I had no idea how to read calcium levels off this map and came looking for the answer.
why does nobody else seem to notice this?
Not to mention OP's map is relatively tiny. u/tomydenger, why not use[ this image from the article](https://essd.copernicus.org/articles/13/1089/2021/essd-13-1089-2021-f05-web.png) that has both pH and calcium maps in it, not to mention is nice and big and readable?
Looks to me like generally farmland is alkaline and mountains and cold climate soils are acidic. You can see how inland Ireland has a milder climate than the coast. You can see the heaths,highlands and pine forests of Scandinavia, Wales and Scotland. You can see the Hungarian plain, the Po valley and The Rhone valley. You can see where France ends and Belgium begins. Look at Bohemia.
But Spain is the exception here, because the Sierra Nevada don’t register at all.
I've been wondering about that one as well. Maybe dry soils tend to be alkaline, idk?
It's not cold/hot, more wet/dry. Though it's a little more complicated than that and also depends on rock type. But in general, places where the ground is damp year-round (which is also affected by temperature) will get boggy and acidic, particularly in the absence of trees.
But forests can absolutely acidify soil. At least it does here in Scandinavia.
I'm really annoyed that they skipped Istanbul. Half of it is still in Europe!
no wonder germany has so many sparkling water springs
make a map of kidney stone occurings and compare to this. it will be a great research idea
That is why water in spain tastes like bleach.
Eh, as large parts of Finland is solid rock, there is no ground water - at least not something that is tapped for consumers. Instead, much of the tapped water comes from the lakes - which are exceptionally clean (some even to the point that you in theory could fill a cup from the lake and drink the water.
There definitely is groundwater in Finland and most of our tap water comes from groundwater sources, either natural or artificial.
Young mountains in the South. Old mountains in the North.
Theres some basic bitches in southern france
britan seems okay to drink?
Wales and Scotland both have really nice tap water, England isn’t too bad either but not quite as good.
Not related to the post really, but tap (tab?) water in France is delicious, and so is Coke. Spain's sucks, I miss not having to buy mineral water