Investigation of the groundwater potential in the Faroe Islands

The main aim of the project was to gather knowledge about the Faroese groundwater aquifers in regard to (1) the circulation age and (2) the maximum temperature of the water samples to give knowledge about the circulation systems of the aquifers. Additionally, the idea was to initiate a groundwater geochemistry map of the Faroe Islands in a publicly available GIS database to be used to investigate the possibility of groundwater as a resource in the Faroe Islands.

The main results where that 37 samples where successfully analysed chemically and for various isotopes. The investigated groundwater systems are meteoric with high pH values. Two of the samples indicated that they are originating from reservoirs with higher temperature than 40°C while three of the samples originate from reservoirs with temperatures of between 20°C and 30°C. The most surprising result was that none of these five samples had a measured field temperature over 20°C.
There are indications that the spring water has a more rapid recharge time, but the results also initiated a row of new questions which will need further discussions and successive new analysis.