New project develops methods to prioritise groundwater protection in Danish land use planning
April 23. 2025
A new research project will develop methods over the next four years that better and more cost-effectively secure the necessary knowledge for groundwater protection in future land use planning. With a total budget of approximately DKK 35 million, of which approximately DKK 26 million come from Innovation Fund Denmark.
“We will develop and integrate various technical and research methods and create a new knowledge base to integrate groundwater protection with the protection of the rest of the aquatic environment, biodiversity, human health and the climate from an environmental and economic perspective,” says Birgitte Hansen, project manager and professor in the Department of Geochemistry at the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland (GEUS).
The project is titled ‘Groundwater Protection in a Changing Landscape’, ‘PROTECT’ for short. The project develops models that will integrate detailed geological, hydrological and geochemical knowledge about the groundwater aquifers, so that we gain a better insight into the distribution and duration of unwanted chemical substances in the groundwater. Central to the project is also the development of a new geophysical method that will use a drone to map the extent and nature of groundwater aquifers in large areas.
“With the development of a new fully airborne drone-based TEM system, which sends electromagnetic impulses into the ground, we can collect high-resolution data in large areas all year round, and this can help us map the subsurface in a cost-effective way,” says Birgitte Hansen.
The research project will test and develop the methods on the island of Samsø in 2025-2029 in collaboration with authorities and stakeholders. Methods and analyses will be scaled up to a national level. The project is expected to deliver the necessary knowledge and methods to help meet some of the goals of the green transition, including reducing nitrogen emissions to the aquatic environment and protecting drinking water from unwanted chemical substances, which will benefit the environment as well as public health. At the same time, there is great potential for the application of the methods internationally.
Fact box: About the project
The project has been titled ‘Groundwater Protection in a Changing Landscape’, PROTECT for short. It has a total budget of DKK 35 million, of which DKK 26 million come from Innovation Fund Denmark. PROTECT is a collaboration between nine partners:
The Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland (GEUS)
Department of Food and Resource Economics, University of Copenhagen (KU-IFRO)
SDU Drone Center, Mærsk Mc-Kinney Møller Institute, University of Southern Denmark (SDU)
