Sterre Adams & Floor Stultiens

CA2G
Quality of drinking water
Kvaliteten p drikkevannet
First of all we want to give some information about what we will be talking about.
In this report we will be talking about the quality of the drinking tap water in
Norway and the Netherlands, which one has the best quality, the hardness of the
water, the chlorine in the water, the way they purify the water and if you can
safely drink it. We first want to say something about the danger of poor drinking
water. Poor drinking water can have all kinds of pathogens the most common
ones are bacteria, viruses and protozoa parasites. From this all kinds of diseases
can occur. Some diseases may even cause deaths. We really want to warn you:
always first search on the internet if you can safely drink the water of the tap
before drinking it as we said: it can cause your death and a terrible disease. We
will also use a two terms which we will first explain to you.
pH: how acid or basic a certain substance is.
More than 7: alkaline
Exactly 7: neutral
Less than 7: acid
Hardness/ dH: how many grams of calcium there is in one litre of water.

Norway is a country in the North of Europe and is attached to

Sweden. The capital city of Norway is Oslo. It has 5,087
million inhabitants, it is approximately 10 times bigger than
the Netherlands and the language is Norwegian.

Norway has excellent drinking tap water. Norway

is the second best quality of tap water provider
to its citizens in the world! The water systems of
the country treat the water in a way to provide
pure, delicious, clean and safe drinking water of
high quality. Norway has over 2500 water
systems. The country has special programs
which look into protection of ground water and
other water systems in Norway. There are regular
checks that are conducted to test the quality of
drinking water. There wasnt more information
available on the internet about the purification of the drinking tap water in
Norway. But from this we can say that you can safely drink the tap water from
Norway. In the most restaurants there are even bottles with tap water on the
table.

The hardness/dH of the water in Norway is on average 7.14. In one litre of water
there is 1 milligram of calcium. Unfortunately there hardly isnt any information
available on the internet about the pH of the drinking water in Norway. But what
we can conclude out of the information we have found, is that the drinking water
is on average around 7.1 8.9. The perfect pH value for drinking tap water is 7.8
8.3 so the quality of the drinking water of Norway is of very good quality!
Unfortunately we havent found any information about the chlorine in the
drinking water of Norway.
 The Netherlands is a country in the West of Europe and it
is attached to Belgium and Germany. The capital of the
Netherlands is Amsterdam. It has nearly 17 million
inhabitants and the language is Dutch.

The drinking water in the Netherlands is clean

and safe to drink. This is based on the
measurements done by drinking tap water
companies. However the Netherlands isnt in
the top 10 of countries with the best drinking
water of the world, whereas Norway is. The
drinking tap water in the Netherlands is clean
and safe to drink. This is based on the
measurements done by drinking tap water
companies. The government takes actions to
protect and guarantee safe drinking water
which will always be available.

In eighty percent of the drinking tap water in the Netherlands is no chlorine

present anymore. However some water companies still use chlorine with cleaning
the water. Most of the companies in the Netherlands use UV radiation to clean
the water. We could not find the average dH of the Netherlands on average so we
took some big cities. The dH of Amsterdam is for example 8, Utrecht: 6.4,
Maastricht: 9.6 and the dH of Leeuwarden is 6.8. The same goes for the pH of the
drinking water so we took some of the provinces of the Netherlands:
- South-Holland 8.6
- North-Holland 8.36
- Limburg 7.20
- Zealand 8.3
There are three sources to get water from: ground water, surface water and dune
water. Around two third of the drinking tap water in the Netherlands comes from
ground water which is pumped out of the ground. Surface water comes from the
river Rhine and the river Maas. And dune water comes from the dunes of course.
Purification of ground water
1. A pump draws groundwater from deep in the ground
2. Air (oxygen) is blown over the groundwater
3. To filter: groundwater filtration with sand
4. Aeration by waterfalls. This will also remove the lime
5. If it is necessary the water is filtered again (Post-Filtering)
6. The clean water is stored and then transported to homes, schools and
businesses.

Purification of surface water

1. Pumps bring the river into reservoirs. Filters keep large objects and fish
back into the river.
2. The water remains five months sitting in the reservoirs. As it undergoes
natural purification
3. From the reservoirs the water goes to the purification location
4. In the next stage small iron particles are added to the water. This iron is a
magnet for dirt. This causes the flakes in water
5. Flakes Filters and quickly filters remove the iron flakes with the embedded
dirt from the water
 6. Disinfection with UV light and activated carbon filters ensure complete
cleaning of the water
7. The clean water is stored and then transported to homes, schools and
businesses.

Purification of dune water

1. A pump draws the pre-purified water from the dunes
2. Carbon removes harmful substances and improves the taste
3. The water flows through waterfalls, so there is oxygen in the water
4. Sand filters and optionally removing lime
5. The clean water is stored and then transported to homes, schools and
businesses.
As we already said we couldnt find any information about the purification of
drinking tap water of Norway, but we think that the methods of cleaning the
water arent very different from the purification methods of the Netherlands, the
only thing is that Norway still uses chlorine to purify the water so it is slightly
different.

Conclusion
Maybe you had already expected this, but we think the quality of the drinking tap
water of Norway is the best. We base this is special on the pH value and that
Norway is 2nd in the top 10 of the best drinking tap water providers in the world!