Skjern River ( da, Skjern Å) is the largest river in Denmark, in terms of volume. The river has its
spring
Spring(s) may refer to:
Common uses
* Spring (season)
Spring, also known as springtime, is one of the four temperate seasons, succeeding winter and preceding summer. There are various technical definitions of spring, but local usage of ...
in Tinnet Krat in central Jutland, very close to Denmark's longest river, the
Gudenå
Gudenå or Gudenåen (), is Denmark's longest river and runs through the central parts of the Jutlandic peninsula. An anglicized version of the name often seen is 'The River Guden'.
Gudenåen has its spring in Tinnet Krat, Vejle Municipality (be ...
. It drains about one tenth of Denmark and flows into the Ringkøbing Fjord - a
lagoon
A lagoon is a shallow body of water separated from a larger body of water by a narrow landform, such as reefs, barrier islands, barrier peninsulas, or isthmuses. Lagoons are commonly divided into ''coastal lagoons'' (or ''barrier lagoons'') ...
and former
bay of the
North Sea
The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Norway, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. An epeiric sea, epeiric sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the ...
. The river has its name from town of
Skjern, located at the
river delta
A river delta is a landform shaped like a triangle, created by deposition of sediment that is carried by a river and enters slower-moving or stagnant water. This occurs where a river enters an ocean, sea, estuary, lake, reservoir, or (more ra ...
(the only river delta in the country) at Ringkøbing Fjord. In flood stage, it can discharge up to 200
m³/s.
Recent history
In the 1960s, the Danish government began straightening the rivers run and drain the extensive
wetlands that had formed around the
river mouth, to prevent the frequent floodings and allow for
intensive farming
Intensive agriculture, also known as intensive farming (as opposed to extensive farming), conventional, or industrial agriculture, is a type of agriculture, both of crop plants and of animals, with higher levels of input and output per unit of ...
in the region. However, the plan backfired. Without the frequent
sediment
Sediment is a naturally occurring material that is broken down by processes of weathering and erosion, and is subsequently transported by the action of wind, water, or ice or by the force of gravity acting on the particles. For example, sa ...
deposits supplied by floodings, increasing amounts of chemical fertilizers and nutrients were needed to sustain a productive agriculture and the river, unable to spread the sediment across a wide wetland, silted up in many places. Furthermore, the land began to sink as it dried out and ceased to be replenished with fresh sediment. The slow sinking of the land, made the drainage infrastructure increasingly ineffective.
By 1987, the government decided to implement a program of
land rehabilitation
Land rehabilitation as a part of environmental remediation is the process of returning the land in a given area to some degree of its former state, after some process ( industry, natural disasters, etc.) has resulted in its damage. Many projects ...
to restore the river to a more natural state. Though the plan was not completed and approved until 1997, by 2002, the work was mostly completed. Much of the river and wetland are now protected area, home to a variety of wildlife, including
otters,
Atlantic salmon and a variety of
waterbird
A water bird, alternatively waterbird or aquatic bird, is a bird that lives on or around water. In some definitions, the term ''water bird'' is especially applied to birds in freshwater ecosystems, although others make no distinction from seabi ...
s. Tourism and traditional
cattle
Cattle (''Bos taurus'') are large, domesticated, cloven-hooved, herbivores. They are a prominent modern member of the subfamily Bovinae and the most widespread species of the genus ''Bos''. Adult females are referred to as cows and adult ma ...
grazing
In agriculture, grazing is a method of animal husbandry whereby domestic livestock are allowed outdoors to roam around and consume wild vegetations in order to convert the otherwise indigestible (by human gut) cellulose within grass and other ...
, have replaced the intensive agriculture as the primary economic use of the land.
The restored Skjern River and surrounding delta was supposed to be incorporated in the
Skjern Å National Park, comprising a area, but the national park project was abandoned in 2012. The national park process however, had already advanced to the level of establishing walking paths and facilities for visitors at that point and on 21 September 2014, two local citizens groups, involving nine towns and villages, unofficially opened Skjern Å National Park.
Nationalpark Skjern Å åbnede d. 21.september 2014
/ref>
See also
* List of rivers in Denmark
* List of national parks of Denmark
References
Sources
* Ecological Engineering 2007 (Morten Lauge Pedersen ''et al.'')
Restoration of Skjern River and its valley—Short-term effects on river habitats, macrophytes and macroinvertebrates
''Department of Freshwater Ecology'', National Environmental Research Institute.
External links
Map of the river delta
* Sense the West Coast
Skjern Å - A Unique Piece of Nature
Info-page on nature- and tourists experiences in the river delta.
visited 20.01.2015,
{{DEFAULTSORT:Skjern
Rivers of Jutland
Wetlands of Denmark