It drains about one tenth of Denmark and flows into the Ringkøbing Fjord - a lagoon and former bay of the North Sea.

Without the frequent sediment 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.

By 1987, the government decided to implement a program of land rehabilitation to restore the river to a more natural state.

Tourism and traditional cattle grazing, have replaced the intensive agriculture as the primary economic use of the land.

[1] 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.