POSSIBLE ENVIRONMENTAL ASPECTS OF THERMAL WATER UTILISATION IN NORTH EAST HUNGARY

The reserves and exploitation of conventional, so-called fossil energy resources are limited, therefore the utilisation of renewable energy resources has been becoming more and more important. Present study focuses on the thermal water utilisation possibilities i.e. energy content utilisation, balneological utilisation, irrigation, and the related environmental aspects in North East part of Hungary. Among the environmental effects the total dissolved solid concentration and the methane and carbon dioxide content are examined through the examples of 66 thermal water wells screened into pannonian sensu lato (s.l). succession. Thermal water utilisation may have many various environmental aspects: chemical impacts, gas emission, thermal effects, water quality effects noise effects, landscape change, from which methane and solids dissolved in thermal water emitted by its extraction are highlighted. Considering that the annual thermal water extraction from reservoirs located in the Northern part of the Great Hungarian Plain the annual Total dissolved solid concentration (TDS) and methane production can be estimated as 28,207 tones and 1,671,482 m 3 , respectively. It must be highlighted that by applying cascade systems, the efficiency of thermal water utilisation can be improved while environmental aspects do not increase considerably.