Santa Maria water springs in the territory of the Hyblean park, a naturalistic area with exceptional characteristics located among the rivers Irminio, Dirillo and Anapo. A place where the natural habitat is unchanged for millennia, characterised by a wonderful landscape rich in quarries and gorges. The several creeks have forever been cutting out and carving the characteristic rock faces of this area , creating a dense network of splits. Rainwater is then transported along the canyons and naturally stored in the subsoil. In the depth of the caves, water accumulates and flows up to the mouth in little springs on the valley floor or in underwater springs.
A landscape in contrast with the idea of an arid Sicily and that, actually, has permitted the survival of real ecological niches over the years.
The reign of a wild nature, often unspoiled
Here the landscape is dominated by arboreal, shrub-like and herbaceous plants, typical of the Mediterranean scrub, but also rock plants, able to survive on the Hyblean limestone rocks. The species involved, in a territory that is just 8% of Sicily in its entirety, are about 1500 out of the 3000 existing in the region. A very high number considering the geographic area. Not only the vegetation, but also insects, water organisms and protected animal species, like birds of prey, chose the Hyblean park as their natural habitat.
Spectacular limestone landscapes, plants and animals live together in natural harmony, like a real open-air museum
In this landscape, in one of the groundwater areas of this land, Santa Maria water is extracted and transported, as pure as at the spring, to the SIAM plants. Once the groundwater area is intercepted in the depths, Santa Maria draws its waters from a hydro-geological domain constituted by intensely fractured calcirudites and calcarenites, limited on the upper edge by clay and marly lenses that hygienically isolate the layer from the surface. The combination of these hydro-geological characteristics, the healthiness of the environment and the natural habitat make Santa Maria low mineral content water bacteriologically pure and clear, with some of the lowest sodium values.
