GeoHyd Lunch Seminar: Nonstationary magnitude-frequency relationship of flood under climate change – report from a FRINATEK project

Abstract: Floods are among the world’s costliest natural disasters, and climate change made catastrophic floods much more likely. In the past decades the stationarity assumption of Flood frequency analysis (FFA) has been severely challenged because of global climate change. Hydraulic structures (e.g. Dams, Bridges, etc.) designed using conventional methods based on the assumption of stationarity will not provide the assumed level of protection (increase dam failure risk) or production of hydropower over the design life. Therefore, there is a need for developing more consistent nonstationary frequency analysis methods that can account for transient nature of a changing environment. 

This seminar presents activities and results of the NFR project entitled: Advancing frequency analysis of nonstationary hydrological extremes for reducing flood risk in a changing climate (Forskningsprosjekt – FRINATEK). The results were achieved through collaboration of the project partners from 5 countries including 4 universities (UiO, Wuhan University, University of Malawi, Texas A&M University), 2 governmental departments (NVE, National Institute of Hydrology, India), 1 research institution (NORCE), 2 industries (Statkraft, China Three Gorges Cooperation).