Nitrate in drinking water wells is an outcome of 50 years of extensive farming. If we do not protect the areas of drinking water reservoirs, we as a community will run out of clean drinking water in the future. We help find the clean water in the aquifer in boreholes for our health as well as reduce the future costs of drilling new boreholes for clean water. Too high nitrate content can have negative effects on public health being. For example, the risk of breast and colorectal  cancer.

Clean water is under pressure, and so are the water supply wells from which we get our drinking water.

Just Measure has developed a system that can measure nitrate among other in drinking water wells down to 100 meter, 10 bar. JMAR, Just Measure Robotics, is lowered into water supply bore using an automated process controlled from external computer/mobile. The electronic meter gauge tells about the depth the JMAR is in, which is compared with level-specific measurements from given times.

Thereby, the picture of nitrate deposits in the water layers is drawn from top to bottom down to a depth of 100 metres.

Just-measure has together with Aalborg utility and Danish Institute of Technology developed JMAR, Just Measure Robotics remote control, which helps Utilities, Consultants, well drillers etc.:

• Monitoring for nitrate in boreholes; including mapping the nitrate variations vertically down through the aquifer
• This avoids the nitrate zone when new boreholes are made
• To use data from JMAR as part of the decision-making basis for reducing the nitrate content of wells to be rehabilitated

Sit in your office and get data remotely from the wells water profile – meter by meter with 12 measurements every step. With JMAR – Just-measure Robotics – you are in control with the sensor and datalogger.

Why does Aalborg Utility measure nitrate?
At Aalborg Utility they would like to secure the drinking water supply for the future so that citizens can continue to get clean drinking water from their taps.

One problem, however, is that the large discharge of fertilizer on the fields in the past has meant that the excess, unconsumed nutrients in the form of nitrate have, over the years, moved down through the soil layers, through the lime subsoil and further via cracks and fissures into the groundwater and thereby to the drinking water boreholes.

The problem in the Aalborg area with nitrate in the groundwater is generally quite complex, as the geological conditions around Aalborg mean that you do not have natural protection against excess nitrate, as you have in other parts of the country. There is simply a lack of nitrate reduction capacity in the soil layers.

Furthermore, the long residence time of the water in the unsaturated lime zone means that you are only now seeing the effect of the large nitrate surpluses that were discharged in the 70s and 80s.