The Nordic region has experienced several extreme hydrological events in the 21st century; including the major drought in 2018 and the extreme wet conditions in western Norway in summer 2026 with record high rainfall at some stations. Fig. 1 shows the diversity across Norway at the end of August with higher-than-normal groundwater levels in the northwestern part and lower-than-normal levels in the central and eastern parts of Norway. Groundwater is normally the last to respond to extreme weather due to the memory of the hydrological system varying with aquifer properties, topography, soil types, and the presence of storage elements such as lakes and mires.
This thesis aims to i) study extended wet and dry weather extremes and how these translate into groundwater levels time series (forward analysis), ii) identify periods of extreme high and low groundwater levels and their drivers using deep learning techniques (backward analysis), and iii) identify if possible coherent regions or cluster of groundwater behaviour across the Nordic region.
The work will be a contribution to the EU funded project GroundedExtremes and the Nordic Baltic Drought Network.
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