Try https://MyTapWater.org or https://www.ewg.org/tapwater/ for better info in the US
Thanks for those links! It seems https://www.data.gov/ is a great source for US tap water data used by both websites!
Show HN: An interactive map of countries by tap water quality
61–70 of 97 posts
Re: Show HN: An interactive map of countries by tap water quality
#62Nice. One thought... the greatest "oh that's neat" payoff for me was seeing a note that in some county, bottled water was widely available. And in another, not. Which prompted me to wonder which countries that was/wasn't true for, and how it relates to tap quality. But the UI didn't seem to make that easy to explore. So perhaps pull more information up to the top level? At least on desktop? One pattern of use is "exp…
Thanks for your thoughts! I'll try and make it easier to "explore the world" as you said, definitely going to remove the "zoom in". I initially tried to keep the data shown on the map compact to keep the page load time reasonable, I'll see what I can do!
Re: Show HN: An interactive map of countries by tap water quality
#63The primary/top database (Numbeo) you source is of dubious quality - i.e. Opinion based. Other sources vary wildly in reputation and don't offer information down to the city level you offer in search. The link to the CDC is to the homepage and offers no further depth on the subject you are reporting on. Don't understand why you have a marketing type message that offers a calculation cost of savings from not drinking…
For the map itself, Numbeo is not the primary source, that would be the WHO data, which is weighted 3 times more than the data coming from Numbeo to put an emphasis on a more reliable data source.
The cost-saving from not drinking bottled water is not necessarily dependent if the water is drinkable or not, as water filters are widely available and can offer substantial savings -> https://home.howstuffworks.com/save-money-with-water-filter1... The prices are taken from Numbeo and are the average prices for 1.5L bottles. I am aware this is not a perfect calculation method, I am planning to add a cost-saving calculator soon which will offer more flexibility.
Regarding the reputable source of information, you are right. Country-level data can never be a good decision-tool to chose if you can drink tapwater somewhere or not. It has to happen on an area-basis and include scientific reports, which are hard to get as of 2020 as there is no single source/database/API for that, except for very few countries (including the US and Austria), I'm working on that and I'll try to improve the UI so it reflects that one should check the water quality in the area of interest rather than the country itself.
Re: Show HN: An interactive map of countries by tap water quality
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think you may have misunderstood. It is pretty standard to use chlorine in the purification process, but that chlorine is not left in the water. There should be negligible chlorine in any water coming out of the tap. I've certainly never been able to smell it let alone taste it anywhere in Canada.
I could have misunderstood! But when you can smell it when you shower and taste it when you drink it, there is a considerable amount of residue of chemicals in the water. Maybe I smell it because I'm used to water without it. I don't know if it's actually harmful, but when there are alternatives widely deployed, for instance in the Netherlands I don't see the reason for taking the risk.
Canada is a very large country with a wide variety of water. I'm quite surprised that you were somewhere where you were able to smell/taste chlorine in the water as that has not been my experience, but at least one other commenter seems to agree with you. That said, small amounts of chlorine are perfectly safe.
Re: Show HN: An interactive map of countries by tap water quality
#65The primary/top database (Numbeo) you source is of dubious quality - i.e. Opinion based. Other sources vary wildly in reputation and don't offer information down to the city level you offer in search. The link to the CDC is to the homepage and offers no further depth on the subject you are reporting on. Don't understand why you have a marketing type message that offers a calculation cost of savings from not drinking…
For the map itself, Numbeo is not the primary source, that would be the WHO data, which is weighted 3 times more than the data coming from Numbeo to put an emphasis on a more reliable data source. The cost-saving from not drinking bottled water is not necessarily dependent if the water is drinkable or not, as water filters are widely available and can offer substantial savings -> https://home.howstuffworks.com/save-m…
IDK, for me it looks more like a taste map than a quality map. In Spain northern regions have almost perfect water where mediterranean regions do have taste and more problems due the nature of their sources of water. I mean, it's not very useful. You'd drink tap water in my city or Madrid, you wouldn't like it in Barcelona, although you can.
Re: Show HN: An interactive map of countries by tap water quality
#66The primary/top database (Numbeo) you source is of dubious quality - i.e. Opinion based. Other sources vary wildly in reputation and don't offer information down to the city level you offer in search. The link to the CDC is to the homepage and offers no further depth on the subject you are reporting on. Don't understand why you have a marketing type message that offers a calculation cost of savings from not drinking…
Not to disrespect any country, but the fact that Tunisia ranks higher than Italy it's a bit ridiculous...
Which country exactly would be disrespected in this case? :D
On a serious note, Italy indeed has some tap water problems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_supply_and_sanitation_in... , although common sense and the internet telling me that I'd rather drink tap water in Italy than in Tunisia...
Re: Show HN: An interactive map of countries by tap water quality
#67Belgium having the same quality on the map as the Netherlands shows me that the source of then information is wrong or the scale isn’t nuanced enough to be of any use to me. Belgian tap water should, on any scale, be at least a category lower than Dutch tap water.
Belgian tap water is horrible compared to Dutch water. Source: I lived in Brussels for 5 years. Could be just the brusselonian water, but there is a reason that bottles water is a thing that everyone buys in Belgium and practically nobody buys in the Netherlands.
Re: Show HN: An interactive map of countries by tap water quality
#68Re: Show HN: An interactive map of countries by tap water quality
#69Hi HN! I made this while I was lockdown-bored. The data sources are linked on the website. I plan to add scientific reports on water-levels soon on a city-level. I want to raise awareness on how saving money and the environment often comes hand in hand when it comes to drinking water. For most people around the globe drinking straight tap water or using a water filter is a better solution than giving money to bottlin…
I've checked my city here is the link, https://www.iswatersafetodrink.in/Russia/Nizhny-Novgorod I don't know where 350$ is coming from. Most of the people here order drinking water in 20L bottles. Bottles are not thrown away, but collected and reused by water company. We spend about 150$/year*person on this, including delivery costs.
You are right, that's one thing I missed. Water bottle prices are determined on a country-level (I assume average bottle prices are higher in Moscow, I should show them ideally on a city-level) and I'm assuming people are buying 1.5L bottles for simplicity's sake. I am planning to provide a calculator soon to add more flexibility to the savings calculations.
Re: Show HN: An interactive map of countries by tap water quality
#70Hi HN! I made this while I was lockdown-bored. The data sources are linked on the website. I plan to add scientific reports on water-levels soon on a city-level. I want to raise awareness on how saving money and the environment often comes hand in hand when it comes to drinking water. For most people around the globe drinking straight tap water or using a water filter is a better solution than giving money to bottlin…
I think a city level would be great, and interesting. Looking at national numbers misses a lot. For example, Canada and the USA are very similar. However, I live in Vancouver, and when I went to Chicago last year, the tap water was unbelievably bad (tasting). Even the complimentary bottled water in my hotel was bad.
Indeed, just looking at the data on a country-level misses a lot! I am working on providing city-level data, which by the way is substantially harder as the data for most places is hidden deep on some government websites as a PDF, sometimes outdated, sometimes not available at all!