In the coming years and decades, Norway will likely be affected by more frequent and severe extreme weather events, including both intense precipitation and drought. Predicting how these hazards will result in extreme high and low river discharge in a changing climate requires robust hydrologic models representing all relevant physical and human processes.
In this study, the hydrologic and water resources model LISFLOOD will be applied to selected catchments in Norway to evaluate and possibly improve the simulation of high and low flows. The evaluation will be based on observed river discharge, but also other data valuable to characterise the local hydrologic regimes could be considered (e.g. snow season duration).
Model experiments will be designed to assess the impacts of different modelling choices on the quality of simulated discharge. Depending on the student’s interests, here are some examples:
- Quantify the impact of meteorological input uncertainties by forcing the model with several atmospheric datasets.
- Assess whether modelling lakes and regulated reservoirs improve simulated river discharge.
- Test alternative snowmelt parametrisations to the currently implemented ones.
- Try several model calibration criteria.
LISFLOOD is a spatially distributed model simulating hydrologic processes on several land use/cover classes, including snow accumulation and melt, canopy interception, evapotranspiration, infiltration, soil moisture redistribution, surface and subsurface runoff, groundwater, and discharge routing for river channels and floodplains. It can also simulate the effects of lakes, reservoirs and water abstractions. LISFLOOD software is open-source and written in Python (https://ec-jrc.github.io/lisflood/).
