The Royal Danish Embassy in Bangkok hosted a meeting between Department of Groundwater Resources from the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, Thailand (DGR) and The Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland from the Ministry of Climate, Energy and Building, Denmark (GEUS) on Tuesday, 26 June.
During mutual visits in Thailand and Denmark in the recent past years, discussions were held to explore the possibility of introducing and transferring certain advancements such as the newly developed Danish airborne geophysical groundwater mapping methods and technology from Denmark to Thailand.
In Denmark drinking water of high quality is based 100% on groundwater. To protect future drinking water resources, a detailed national groundwater mapping project had been carried out in the last 15 years.
Early 2012, the two parties signed a Memorandum of Understanding which laid the ground for the meeting. The two parties used the opportunity to discuss perspectives and future collaboration, using the MOU as a stepping stone.
This agreement will serve as a general framework for cooperation between the two Parties and is intended to facilitate discussions of more specific programs of collaboration.
The cooperation within the MOU is intended to support the hydrological mapping program in order to obtain results of the highest quality and should be run parallel to the different hydrological mapping projects.
According to the Danish Embassy, if DGR and Thai Consulting Companies work together with GEUS and Danish Consulting Companies based on the best experiences from the two countries, then more detailed, transparent and reliable groundwater mapping results for DGR and for the Thai community can indeed be expected.
The meeting was then followed by lunch, where the various issues were discussed casually and Danish Ambassador Mikael Hemniti Winther spoke of the collaboration between DGR and GEUS as yet another example of the good relationship between Thailand and Denmark.
Commercial Counsellor, Bo Bjerregaard Rasmussen was moderating the session. Discussions will continue throughout the week.
