In August 2023, the extreme weather event named 'Hans' hit southern Norway and caused devastating flooding and landslides covering large areas. At several locations, both precipitation and discharge reached unprecedented levels and led to large damages to private properties, farmland and public infrastructure. The hydro-meteorological conditions resulting in the extreme flooding were a combination of wet initial conditions due to an exceptionally wet July.
When Hans arrived, the buffering capacity in soils and groundwater was limited, consequently, large proportions of the extreme precipitation contributed to the flood event. Hans caused extreme flooding in small catchments as well as several major rivers. Such a large-scale flooding event covering large parts of eastern Norway is rare to occur in summer, and we need to go back nearly a hundred years to find similar events, examples are in August 1938 and 1934 and in July 1789.
This master thesis aims to analyze the flooding caused by Hans and will address the following question:
- How extreme was the event as compared to similar rain-flood events and snowmelt floods in south-eastern Norway?
- How extreme was the rainfall caused by Hans for different durations for sites in the region affected?
The thesis will use streamflow data from the Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate (NVE) and precipitation data from the Norwegian Meteorological Institute. The thesis will rely on a statistical analysis of flood data at specific stations and the spatial extent of the event will be analyzed.
The thesis will use R or Python for the analysis.
Source: The Norwegian Meteorological Institute (https://www.met.no/nyhetsarkiv/over-100-ar-siden-det-har-regnet-sa-mye-pa-ostlandet)
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