Delta Life 11

DELTARES, MARCH 2019 More reports on www.deltares.nl T he Danish agricultural research institute SEGES asked Deltares to link the Nitrate App to the accounts of Danish farmers on the agricultural website Landmand.dk. The Deltares Nitrate App scans and interprets nitrate strips after they have been immersed in water. It displays the results immediately and gives users the option of sharing the data, allowing farmers to measure and share nitrate levels easily, cheaply and quickly. This is not the first time that our Nitrate Appp has been used internationally. The Danish project was preceded by projects in Iowa and California. DANISH FARMERS GO TOWORKWITH THE DUTCH NITRATE APP INCREASED DROUGHT RISK IN THE NETHERLANDS After the very dry summer of 2018, water stocks in the Rhine and Meuse basin are still low. The groundwater levels in large parts of the East and South of the Netherlands are alsomuch lower than usual. Analyses with the Dutch Hydrological Instruments (NHI) show that, even after a wet winter, groundwater l evels in the spring of 2019 will still be low on high sandy ground. The risk of water shortages, and therefore damage to agriculture and nature in 2019, is higher than average. Deltares is developing the NHI in collaboration with Wageningen Environmental Research on behalf of the national government, the water authorities, provincial authorities and water companies. The developments in the 'Netherlands testing ground' are being monitored closely from abroad. More and more often, Deltares is initiating projects where the relationships between groundwater and surface water are investigated in advanced ways. The problem of drought in the Netherlands and internationally emphasises the importance of using integrated hydrological models of this kind. PHOTO: SEGES, DENMARK

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