Skive Fjord (DK)

To comply with the environmental goals set by the Danish authorities, the farmers in the pilot of Skive Fjord are faced with substantial nutrient emission reduction demands which are enforced by ordinary top-down processes. Our aim with this pilot is to demonstrate a better bottom-up approach by developing a concept for an environmental characterizing status report, which is based on involving local stakeholders and site-specific data for the fjord.

Pilot location:  Northern part of Jutland, Denmark

Lead beneficiary: SEGES

More information about this project: 

Skive Fjord, Lovns Bredning and Risgårde Bredning together constitute what we name Skive Fjord.

Skive Fjord covers a water surface area of 221 km2 and is a part of the Limfjord. Each summer there is a predominant risk that Skive Fjord will suffer from hypoxia and the fjord is in a poor ecological state and therefore have the Danish authorities set out nutrient emission reductions (nitrogen) of roughly 46 % and the catchment is largely dominated by agriculture as 64 % of the area is used for agricultural purposes.

Each year there is an environmental status report (NOVANA report) published by The Danish Environmental Protection Agency. The report covers the state of all kinds of surface water in Denmark (including groundwater) and is based on a large amount of monitoring data from all over the country and is to a large extent the fundament for setting nutrient emission reduction goals to comply with the WFD before 2027. The report summaries all fjords or all watercourse on a national scale into one graph or into one indicator, which means that local stakeholders are lacking the possibility of gaining insight into the environmental status of their local surface water.

This pilot aims to demonstrate that a new top-down/bottom-up interaction, when characterizing water environment status in Skive Fjord, will lead to a better common understanding and better decisions, concerning actions towards improving the water environment.

Skive fjord