R&D highlights edition 2019

Ecosystems and environmental quality 23 R&D Highlights 2019 Measurement with the Nitrate App T he Danish agricultural knowledge centre SEGES has asked Deltares to link the Nitrate App to the accounts of Danish farmers on the agricultural website Landmand. dk. As a result, Danish farmers will soon be able to log into the Nitrate App. The nitrate measurements will then be stored in a SEGES database and they can be viewed by farmers through their accounts at Landmand.dk. In collaboration with the University of Aarhus, SEGES first conducted extensive tests with the Nitrate App. The results were excellent and SEGES will use the corresponding report to register the Nitrate App as an official measurement method with the Danish Ministry of Agriculture. The Nitrate App can then be used by ‘catchment officers’, who will provide farmers in Denmark with coaching about water quality measures. The Nitrate App: easy and fast The Nitrate App was developed by Deltares to make it possible for farmers to measure nitrate concentrations easily, cheaply and quickly. The Nitrate App scans and analyses nitrate strips, displays the results immediately and gives users the option of sharing the data. The strips are accurate to within about 70%, which is less accurate than laboratory analyses (which have an accuracy of approximately 90%). National and international use The project in Denmark is not the first international application of the Nitrate App. Deltares has already been involved in a project from the University of Iowa involving a large group of volunteers. In addition, a project completed recently in California used the Nitrate App to identify private sources of drinking water with too much nitrate. In the Netherlands, more and more initiatives are being launched to used the Nitrate App on a larger scale. Against that background, it is useful that farmers can now also make private measurements by logging in to the Nitrate App. Contact: Joachim Rozemeijer, Joachim.Rozemeijer@deltares.nl , t +31 (0)6 2274 8708 Further reading : www.deltares.nl/nitrate-app https://publicwiki.deltares.nl/display/wqapp The Danish agricultural knowledge centre SEGES has asked Deltares to link the Nitrate App to the accounts of Danish farmers on the agricultural website Landmand.dk. As a result, Danish farmers will soon be able to log into the Nitrate App and measure nitrate concentrations easily and quickly. DANISH FARMERS START MEASUREMENTS WITH THE DUTCH NITRATE APP The Nitrate App can be used for catchment routings (a), the detection of unknown spills (b), and determining the routes of nitrate losses (c). Photo: SEGES