Effect of snowmelt and climate change on design of
urban storm water systems
Post. Doc. research project for Bernt Viggo Matheussen
Project Manager/Scientific advisor: Associate professor Sveinn T. Thorolfsson
Scientific advisor: Professor Dennis P. Lettenmaier
Funded by : Norwegian Research Council
Project period: Aug 2004 - Jul 2007
This
proposal is for post-doctorial research that will study the effect of snowmelt
and climate change on design of urban storm water systems. The research will be
conducted by Mr. Bernt Viggo Matheussen
during
the period 01Aug 2004 to 31Jul 2007. The project has been developed in
cooperation with Associate Professor Sveinn T. Thorolfsson (Norwegian University
of Science and Technology, (NTNU)) and Professor
Dennis P. Lettenmaier
(University of Washington,
(UW), USA).
Snowmelt in urban areas is known to strongly affect both flooding and combined sewer overflow (CSO) discharges in northern countries. Despite this, traditional design of urban storm water systems are based on the assumption that it is short duration rainfall in the summer time, that produces the highest peak flows in the drainage systems. During the last ten years there has been an increase in flooding in urban areas in Norway, and it has been argued that these floods are a result of climate change.
The main objective of this research project is to investigate the effect of snowmelt and climate change on design of urban storm water systems. Urban flood frequency curves (FFC) will be developed for summer time and whole-year runoff data, using an urban hydrological model in combination with temporal downscaling techniques. The difference between FFC-summer and FFC-whole-year will directly quantify the effect of snowmelt on flood frequency. A similar approach will be used to study the effect of climate change on urban FFC. Based on the results from this investigation, guidelines for design of urban storm water systems will be produced. These guidelines will include the effect of snowmelt and climate change on design flows. The project will base all the analysis on public domain hydrological data from Norway (NVE, MI), and the U.S. in addition to the scientific data collected at Risvollan urban hydrological research station in Trondheim.