Analysis and classification of bottled waters in the Maghreb Arab region

Abstract

This paper provides the first survey and assessment of the composition of bottled waters (BW) of Maghreb Arab countries. Parameters reported on labels of 74 (BW) brands were used as datasets. According to the Maghreb, EEC and WHO legislations and using PCA, HCA, KMC and ANOVA analysis in conjunction with analytical and empirical approaches, the study discussed the water quality and classification. The results showed that (BW) constituents comply with natural mineral (MW), spring (SW) and table waters (TW) standards for human consumption. It appears that Ca-HCO3 is the dominant facies in Algerian and Tunisian (MW) but in Morocco, they are Ca-HCO3 and Na-HCO3 facies. All Algerian and majority of Moroccan and Tunisian (SW) are Ca-HCO3 type, while both Tunisian and Moroccan (TW) are mainly Na-Cl type. Some of Maghreb (BW) are sulphated, chlorinated, bicarbonated, containing calcium, sodium and fluoride and adapted to a low sodium diet. Classification showed that (BW) could be categorized into four different groups. The first includes five brands (MW), rich in salts with Na + K-Cl facies. Meanwhile, two facies mark the waters of the second (Ca + Mg-SO4 and Ca + Mg-Cl), whereas the waters of the third and fourth are essentially low in salts and marked by Ca + Mg-HCO3 facies.