River Skjern

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The source of the Skjern

The River Skjern (Danish: Skjern Å) is the largest river in Denmark in terms of volume. It drains about one tenth of Denmark before discharging in to the Ringkobing Fjord, a bay of the North Sea near the town of Skjern. The river discharges 206 m³/s (89,100 ft³/s) of water into the sea.

In the 1960s, the Danish Government undertook to straighten the river and drain the massive wetlands that had formed around the river mouth to prevent the frequent flooding and allow for intensive farming in the region. However, the plan backfired. Without the frequent sediment deposits supplied by flooding, increased chemical fertilizers were needed 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 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 is now a protected area, home to a variety of wildlife, including otters, Atlantic salmon, and a variety of waterbirds. Tourism and traditional cattle grazing have replaced the intensive agriculture as the primary economic use of the land.