Under­ground min­er­al waters are nat­ur­al sub­sur­face waters char­ac­ter­ized by a spe­cif­ic and sta­ble physic­o­chem­i­cal com­po­si­tion, as well as the con­tent of bio­log­i­cal­ly active com­po­nents and com­pounds in accor­dance with the stan­dards estab­lished for each deposit. They are used with­out addi­tion­al pro­cess­ing that could alter their chem­i­cal com­po­si­tion or micro­bi­o­log­i­cal prop­er­ties.

Min­er­al under­ground waters are clas­si­fied accord­ing to their pur­pose into med­i­c­i­nal waters, med­i­c­i­nal-table waters, and nat­ur­al-table waters.

Ukraine pos­sess­es a unique hydro-min­er­al poten­tial. In addi­tion to nat­ur­al-table min­er­al waters, which are essen­tial­ly high-qual­i­ty drink­ing waters, the coun­try also con­tains med­i­c­i­nal and med­i­c­i­nal-table min­er­al waters of 15 types with spe­cif­ic com­po­nents and prop­er­ties, as well as 4 types with­out spe­cif­ic com­po­nents and prop­er­ties.

From a ther­a­peu­tic per­spec­tive, waters con­tain­ing spe­cif­ic com­po­nents and prop­er­ties are of the great­est val­ue.

Unique deposits of min­er­al ground­wa­ter are locat­ed in the Zakarpat­tia, Lviv, Khmel­nyt­skyi, Ternopil, and Donet­sk regions. The diver­si­ty of min­er­al waters in Ukraine is impres­sive: the coun­try has 28 deposits of car­bon­at­ed waters, 30 deposits of radon waters, 20 deposits with ele­vat­ed organ­ic con­tent (such as “Naf­tu­sia-type” waters), 23 deposits of bromine waters, 12 deposits of hydro­gen sul­fide waters, and oth­ers.

In Ukraine, oper­a­tional reserves of min­er­al waters have been explored in 329 sites with­in 253 deposits.

The total oper­a­tional reserves of min­er­al waters amount to near­ly 97,000 m³/day, of which ther­a­peu­tic and ther­a­peu­tic-table min­er­al ground­wa­ter reserves have been explored at 172 deposits with total reserves of about 71,000 m³/day. Cur­rent­ly, the aver­age annu­al extrac­tion rate is less than 10% of the approved reserves.

How­ev­er, it should be not­ed that due to dis­tur­bances in the for­ma­tion con­di­tions of min­er­al water deposits caused by techno­genic impact, a num­ber of deposits are expe­ri­enc­ing neg­a­tive process­es such as deple­tion and con­t­a­m­i­na­tion of aquifers, as well as loss of unique prop­er­ties dur­ing exploita­tion. This par­tic­u­lar­ly con­cerns the unique deposits of car­bon diox­ide min­er­al waters in the Zakarpat­tia region.

Over­all, Ukraine has all the pre­req­ui­sites for a sig­nif­i­cant expan­sion of its hydro-min­er­al resource base and increased extrac­tion of min­er­al waters. This would not only con­tribute to pub­lic health and the devel­op­ment of domes­tic tourism, but could also sig­nif­i­cant­ly enhance the country’s invest­ment and tourism attrac­tive­ness on the inter­na­tion­al mar­ket.