NGWA Event and Education Recordings Archive

In Denmark, a 17-year campaign to map national groundwater is concluding in 2015. During this period, new geophysical methods have been developed, new standards have been established, and new software tools developed for data processing and geological modelling. More than 100 geological models have been constructed in the appointed 3D geological modelling software GeoScene3D, ranging from 50 to 1000 km² each. These models are now being accessed and used by geoscientists in municipalities, waterworks, regional government, and state authorities on a daily basis to monitor, develop, and manage the groundwater resource in many different contexts. In this presentation we tell the story about how the Danish groundwater challenges are being handled from a geologist point of view. We will explain some of the lessons learned and demonstrate some of the tools developed for building, maintaining, and distributing updated geological information.

Looking forward, we anticipate new challenges caused by larger modelling areas, larger amounts of data, combined with a growing need for updating existing models when new information appears. In this context, we will demonstrate preliminary results from the ERGO project, Effective High-Resolution Geological Modeling, funded by The Danish National Advanced Technology Foundation. In ERGO we develop geostatistical theory and algorithms enabling the capture of geological expertise in a statistical model. This is operationalized and embedded in user friendly modelling software, which will enable the geologist to use the expert system as an assistant in the geological modelling process. As the software gradually “learns” the geology from the geologist, the expert system makes suggestions for new interpretations. We speculate to further utilization possibilities this provides in terms of securing semi-automated updates of geological models when new data becomes available.