Assessing and improving the groundwater quality monitoring network of the State of Brandenburg, Germany

The project “Groundwater Quality Monitoring Network Improvement 2021/2022” aimed to assess and improve the groundwater quality monitoring network of the Environmental Agency of the State of Brandenburg, Germany. This comprised six major steps:

1. Developing a catalogue of criteria for verifying the suitability of monitoring wells for representative groundwater sampling and for fulfilling specific reporting duties of the Environmental Agency (considering best practices)
2. Assessing the currently active monitoring wells regarding the suitability criteria
3. Reviewing the monitoring network in each groundwater catchment area regarding its capability to fulfil the different reporting duties
4. Identifying deficits in the network and researching further existing suitable monitoring wells in focus areas, e.g. from the Environmental Agency’s water level monitoring network or from district authorities’ networks
5. Testing the researched monitoring wells on site
6. Suggesting locations for constructing new monitoring wells where no suitable wells exist

A total of 936 active monitoring wells have been assessed. These results have been aggregated for 63 groundwater catchment areas as basis for the deficit analysis. 10 focus areas have been identified for researching and testing existing monitoring wells and for suggesting new sites.

One major project outcome is a three-page factsheet for each catchment area including detailed information on land use, hydrogeology and available monitoring wells as well as statistical analyses of the monitoring well distributions and their suitability. It also contains a prioritised list of measures (adding existing wells to the network, high and low priority new locations) to implement in the next years.