In the research project Mapfield, researchers, private companies, authorities, and agriculture cooperate on developing innovative environmental techniques to protect the Danish ground water, water courses and fiords against nitrate pollution, while simoultaneously creating better production conditions for agriculture.

HGG's part of the project is to provide detailed knowledge of the near sub-surface with resolution down to a scale of just a few meters in areas that are several hundreds of hectares large. This is aquired by the means of the tTEM system by which one can map around 100 hectare of farm fields per day. The tTEM system provides an image of the geological structures down to a depth of 70 m, and will be further developed in the project.  The information from the tTEM system and other relevant chemical and structural information gathered by other project partners provides crucial knowledge in order to predict the path, flow, and transformation of water and nitrate from the individual fields to the ground water or streams. The knowledge is intended to form a basis for future legislation on use of fertilizer. Today we know that some areas have a natural capability of nitrate retention while others do not. However, we do not have detailed knowledge of where these areas are situated. This knowledge is necessary if we want to adapt the use of fertilizers to the vulnerability of the individual field or even part of a field. Mapfield, being a highly interdisciplinary project, brings together researchers working on geophysics, hydrogeology, geochemistry, agriculture, modelling, software development, economy, and business development.