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PhD research fellowship in non-stationary flood frequency analysis

Deadline: 30.04.2020

Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate

Established in 1921, the Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate is a directorate under the Ministry of Petroleum and Energy and is responsible for the management of Norway's water and energy resources. Our mandate is to ensure an integrated and environmentally sound management of the country's water resources, promote efficient energy markets and cost-effective energy systems and contribute to the economic utilization of energy. We are Norway's national centre of expertise for hydrology, and play a central role in national flood contingency planning. NVE also has the overall responsibility for maintaining national power supplies. NVE is based in Oslo, has five regional offices in Norway and a total of 600 employees.

Bli kjent med NORGES VASSDRAGS- OG ENERGIDIREKTORAT (NVE)

A PhD position is available at Hydrological Modelling Section at Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate (NVE). PhD supervision is done jointly by Hydrological Modelling Section at NVE, Department of Geosciences at University of Oslo, Norwegian Computing Center (Norsk Regnesentral), and University of Gõttingen)

The fellowship will be for a period of three years with no compulsory work.

The candidate will work in the project 'Climate adjusted design values for extreme precipitation and flooding' (ClimDesign) funded by the Research Council of Norway. Extreme precipitation and floods are costly for society with associated damages on infrastructure and buildings. The frequency and magnitude of extreme precipitation and flooding is expected to increase in the future. Consequently, the associated damage costs can be expected to increase, unless society appropriately adapts to climate changes. An efficient climate adaptation strategy needs to include design and building of flood safe infrastructure and a land use planning approach that accounts for expected changes in precipitation and flood hazards through accurate estimation and usage of design values. Current guidelines for climate adaption of design values is given as climate factors, i.e. factors describing the expected changes in these values. However, there is a need for a more flexible climate-adjusted design information. This includes improved knowledge on expected changes for short versus long duration events, and the need for moving from points to regions when assessing precipitation and flood risk. The main objective of ClimDesign is therefore to generate user-relevant design values for climate change adapted infrastructure based on intensity-duration-frequency (IDF) and flood-duration-frequency (QDF) curves that account for a changing climate at individual locations and across regions. Secondary objectives are to (i) Provide consistent estimates of (precipitation and flood) design values across durations and locations. (ii) Estimate the joint risk of (precipitation and flood) extremes across locations, areas and regions. (iii) Estimate the expected future changes in probabilities and risks of extremes, and the associated uncertainty. (iv) Dissemination of project results to the scientific community, stakeholders, consultancy and other end-users (v) Implement project results in web-based open source prototypes and in operational tools (where feasible) The candidate will join the work in the research group in the ClimDesign project, which is composed of several of the leading climate impacts modelling groups in Norway, holding a high international standard. The major focus of the PhD position is on developing Consistent QDF curves, Non-stationary floods models and Climate adjusted design floods.

The position will be based in Oslo. It is expected that the PhD will have a three month visit to University of Göttingen provided a mobility grant from the Norwegian Research Council is approved.

Descriptions

  • Develop consistent flood frequency estimates across durations (QDF curves)
  • Establish non-stationary flood frequency models
  • Flood frequency estimates for a future climate.

Requirements

The ClimDesign project has the ambition of producing innovative user-defined products estimating design values related to extreme precipitation and floods in both today's and future climate for key sectors in the Norwegian society. Candidates are expected to produce results of high scientific standard.

Candidates must have:

  • Be qualified for admission to the PhD program at the Department of Geosciences, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences at the University of Oslo.
  • A strong background in statistics or mathematics
  • Experience in scripting or programming (e.g. R, Python, Matlab, C , C#)
  • A high standard of English

It is an advantage if candidates have experience with the following topics:

  • Processing and handling of large datasets
  • Hydrological or atmospheric modelling
  • Advanced statistical methods
  • Fair knowledge of Norwegian, Danish or Swedish

Personal qualifications

  • High working capacity
  • Good writing skills
  • Able to work as a member of a team
  • NVE attaches great importance to personal qualities in general

We offer

  • The candidate will be placed in the position code PhD Candidate (Stipendiat 1017) and the salary will be according to qualifications in the salary bracket ltr. 54 - 57 (annual salary 479 600 - 504 700 NOK). Pension is deducted according to existing regulations.
  • Offices at Majorstuen close to Frognerparken in Oslo training facilities and a company sports team
  • Family friendly and flexible personnel policy
  • Flexible working hours, reduced working hours in the summer and paid overtime
  • Membership in the Norwegian Public Service Pension Fund that includes favourable housing loans
  • Foreign applicants are advised to attach an explanation of their University's grading system. Please remember that all documents should be in English or a Scandinavian language.

Application date: April 30th 2020.

If an applicant wishes to opt out from a public list of applicants, this must be justified. Information regarding the applicant can be released even if the applicant has asked not to be included on the list of applicants. If the reservation is disregarded the applicant will be notified of this before the public list of applicants drawn up.

If necessary regarding some position, there can be conducted an extended reference check of candidate (s) who are recommended for the position. This means a document and source control to confirm the origin and validity of the CV, letters of statement and/or degree/exam certificates.

Apply for position

Contacts:

  • Dr. Stein Beldring (Fung. seksjonssjef), 22 95 91 33
  • Dr. Kolbjørn Engeland (Senior researcher), 22 95 94 53, koe@nve.no
  • Kathrine Berg Nilsen (HR-kontakt), 22 95 98 62

Homepage: www.nve.no

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