Skjåk and neighbouring municipalities in Gudbrandsdalen are among the driest areas in Norway. To have good agricultural production, farmers have for hundreds of years constructed waterways to lead water for irrigation from mountain lakes and ponds. Some of these waterways are still being used and maintained and are important even today. Even though the waterways are made for drought, the question has come up if they also could have a retention capacity to mitigate against flooding in the smaller tributary streams under a future wetter climatic setting.
The objective of the thesis would be to model the potential effect of these waterways. The work will comprise a mapping study to identify waterways in a certain area, followed by fieldwork to inspect the state of the waterways and their source lakes. This would be the background for the following modelling study.
Many of the waterways are digitized and there is abundant written information about them. The waterways have a significant local cultural historic significance, and the student should have an interest in this and for field work, in addition to GIS work and hydrological modelling.
