Abstract
The projected climate change for Norway through the 21st century
predicts that the temperature will increase by 4.5 OC.
Events with heavy rainfall will be more intense and occur more
frequently. Rainfloods will increase in magnitude and also occur more
frequently. Extreme flooding and heavy rain will significantly impact
the sediment dynamics in rivers. In the mountain areas, floods are often
associated with erosion, transport and deposition of coarse sediment
along the streams. These processes are related to bed load transport and
pose a hazard in addition to the elevated water discharge and have to be
included in management plans for river basins. This paper studies the
bed load delivery from sources that contribute the most to the sediment
budget in the Gudbrandsdalslågen river basin during the large magnitude
floods in 2011 and 2013. More than 100 debris slides and debris flow
were triggered in the tributary river Veikleåi by the heavy rain and
snowmelt during these floods. The volume of the contribution from debris
flows and erosion and deposition of the river bed was determined by
subtracting digital elevation models acquired during repeated airborne
LIDAR surveys. In the river Dørja the supply of sediment from a number
of debris flows caused extensive aggradation and channel changes. In
their new position, lateral erosion by these channels triggered slides
on the adjacent slopes. The contributing volumes of debris flows,
lateral erosion and river-bed erosion and deposition were determined
from the LIDAR surveys. Relations obtained from studies of sediment
transport in modern glacier rivers were used to obtain estimates of the
ratio of bed load vs suspended load derived from the Pleistocene moraine
deposits. Several monitoring stations using conventional methods for
measuring bed load and suspended load recorded very large volumes of
sediment delivery during both of the extreme floods. Implications for
the future development of mitigation are discussed.