Groundwater protection in Denmark

Groundwater protection has for decades been high on the Danish political agenda with implementation of national environmental action plans since the 1980’ies and a comprehensive groundwater mapping program in 2000 targeting vulnerable areas in need of further protection at a municipally level. Successful effect on improving groundwater quality due to effectful national agricultural nitrogen regulations has been documented with monitoring data in the first two decades until around year 2000. Since then, groundwater protection in Denmark has had negligeable effect e.g. seen in minor improvements on lowering nitrate concentrations in groundwater, and recently on detection of new emergent contaminants in many monitoring and drinking water abstraction wells. In addition, concerning nitrate, new knowledge has questioned the current drinking water standard of 50 mg/l due to increasing evidence of health effects well below this standard.

This talk will give an overview on the state and trends of nitrate in Danish groundwater for evaluation of the effect of protection strategies and present an Innovation Fund Denmark project called PROTECT running from 2025-2029. PROTECT aims to provide tools and knowledge for holistic future protection of groundwater in conjunction with protection of nature, the aquatic environment, climate, and human health by integrating knowledge from geosciences, engineering, medical and social sciences.