Publisert 13.12.2021 , sist oppdatert 13.09.2024

Norwegian Hydrological Reference Dataset for climate change studies

The Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate (NVE) is the national institution for hydrology. The Hydrology department in NVE has defined a Hydrological Reference Dataset (HRD) with timeseries suitable for use in climate change studies.

Data can be used to analyze climatological changes and its consequences. The HRD has already been used in a range of publications (Wilson et al. 2010, Li et al. 2015, Vormoor et al. 2015, Filipova et al. 2016, Romanowicz et al. 2016, Vormoor et al. 2016, Blöschl et al. 2017, Hodgkins et al. 2017, Blöschl et al. 2019, Filipova et al. 2019, Lawrence 2020, Hagen et al. 2021). The dataset consists of long timeseries with good quality data that are little/not affected by human activity. The timeseries that is included in the HRD is collected from NVE’s Hydra II database and includes the parameters: streamflow, groundwater, snow depth, snow-water equivalent, glacier mass balance and length, ice and water temperatures in lakes and rivers.  

NVE’s work with defining timeseries for the HRD started in 2013. The first HRD with all parameters as well as background and methods used can be found in the NVE report: Anne K. Fleig (Ed.): Norwegian Hydrological Referance Dataset for Climate Change StudiesNVE Report no. 2/2013. 

In recent years the HRD has been updated continuously, and the methods for selecting timeseries have been further developed. Updated HRD for each parameter and data selection methods are listed below.

References: 
Blöschl G., Hall J., Parajka J., Perdigão R.A.P., Merz B., Arheimer B., Aronica G.T., Bilibashi A., Bonacci O., Borga M., Canjevac I., Castellarin A., Chirico G.B., Claps P., Fiala K., Frolova N., Gorbachova L., Gül A., Hannaford J., Harrigan S., Kireeva M., Kiss A., Kjeldsen T.R., Kohnová S., Koskela J.J., Ledvinka O., Macdonald N., Mavrova-Guirguinova M., Mediero L., Merz R., Molnar P., Montanari A., Murphy C., Osuch M., Ovcharuk V., Radevski I., Rogger M., Salinas J.L., Sauquet E., Sraj M., Szolgay J., Viglione A., Volpi E., Wilson D., Zaimi K., Zivkovic N. (2017) Changing climate shifts timing of European floods. Science, 357 (6351), 588–590, doi: 10.1126/science.aan2506

Blöschl G., Hall J., Viglione A., Perdigão R.A.P., Parajka J., Merz B., Lun D., Arheimer B., Aronica G.T., Bilibashi A., Bohác M., Bonacci O., Borga M., Canjevac I., Castellarin A., Chirico G.B., Claps P., Frolova N., Ganora D., Gorbachova L., Gül A., Hannaford J., Harrigan S., Kireeva M., Kiss A., Kjeldsen T.R., Kohnová S., Koskela J.J., Ledvinka O., Macdonald N., Mavrova-Guirguinova M., Mediero L., Merz R., Molnar P., Montanari A., Murphy C., Osuch M., Ovcharuk V., Radevski I., Salinas J.L., Sauquet E., Sraj M., Szolgay J., Volpi E., Wilson D., Zaimi K., Zivkovic N. (2019) Changing climate both increases and decreases European river floods. Nature, 573, 108–111, doi: 10.1038/s41586-019-1495-6

Filipova, V., Lawrence, D., Klempe, H. (2016) Regionalisation of the parameters of the rainfall–runoff model PQRUT. Hydrology Research, 47(4), 748–766. doi: 10.2166/nh.2016.060 

Filipova, V., Lawrence, D., Skaugen, T. (2019) A stochastic event-based approach for flood estimation in catchments with mixed rainfall and snowmelt flood regimes. Natural Hazards  and Earth System Sciences, 19(1), 1–18. doi: 10.5194/nhess-19-1-2019 

Hagen, J.S., Leblois, E., Lawrence, D., Solomatine, D., Sorteberg, A. (2021) Identifying major drivers of daily streamflow from large-scale atmospheric circulation with machine learning. Journal of Hydrology, 596, 126086. doi: 10.1016/j.jhydrol.2021.126086 

Hodgkins, G.A., Whitfield, P.H., Burn, D.H., Hannaford, J., Renard, B., Stahl, K., Fleig, A.K., Madsen, H.  Mediero, L., Korhonen, J., Murphy, C., Crochet, P., Wilson, D. (2017) Climate-driven  variability in the occurrence of major floods across North America and Europe, Journal of Hydrology, 552, 704–717. doi: 10.1016/j.jhydrol.2017.07.027 

Lawrence, D. (2020) Uncertainty introduced by flood frequency analysis in projections for changes in flood magnitudes under a future climate in Norway. Journal of Hydrology: Regional Studies, 28, 100675. doi: 10.1016/j.ejrh.2020.100675 

Li, H., Beldring, S., Xu, C.-Y., Huss, M., Melvold, K., Jain, S.K. (2015) Integrating a glacier retreat model into a hydrological model–Case studies of three glacierised catchments in Norway and Himalayan region. Journal of Hydrology, 527, 656–667. doi: 10.1016/j.jhydrol.2015.05.017 

Romanowicz, R.J., Bogdanowicz, E., Debele, S.E., Doroszkiewicz, J., Hisdal, H., Lawrence, D., Meresa, H.K., Napiórkowski, J.J., Oscuch, M., Witold, G.S., Wilson, D., Wong, W.K. (2016) Climate change impact on hydrological extremes: preliminary results from the Polish-Norwegian Project. Acta Geophysica, 64(2), 477–509. doi: 10.1515/acgeo-2016-0009 

Vormoor, K., Lawrence, D., Heistermann, M., Bronstert, A. (2015) Climate change impacts on the seasonality and generation processes of floods – projections and uncertainties for catchments with mixed snowmelt/rainfall flood regimes, Hydrology and Earth System Sciences19, 913–931. doi: 10.5194/hess-19-913-2015 

Vormoor, K., Lawrence, D., Schlichting, L., Wilson, D., Wong, W.K. (2016) Evidence for changes in the magnitude and frequency of observed rainfall vs. snowmelt driven floods in Norway,  Journal of Hydrology538, 33–48. doi: 10.1016/j.jhydrol.2016.03.066. 

Wilson, D., Hisdal, H., Lawrence, D. (2010) Has streamflow changed in the Nordic countries? – Recent trends and comparisons to hydrological projections. Journal of Hydrology, 394, 334–346, doi: 10.1016/j.jhydrol.2010.09.010