Gudbrandsdalen North (the Otta region)

Otta is the main town of Sel municipality and is located at the junction between the Gudbrandsdalen river and its tributary the Otta river. Due to its location, Otta is an important node of communications. Being the cross point of the railway line and the E-6 road that link Oslo and Trondheim, the Rv-15 road linking the East and the West of Norway, and the county roads Fv-418, Fv-435 and Fv-436.

The valley is highly susceptible to floods and gravity-driven natural hazards including rockfalls, shallow landslides, debris flows, snow avalanches and slush flows. Such hazard events frequently impact the functioning of the railway line, the E-6 road, the Rv-15 road, as well as the possible detouring alternatives, all important routes for both private traffic and transportation of goods.

Case site objectives

1. Identify challenges. Find the locations where linear infrastructure are most frequently exposed to hazard events and face the most severe challenges.
2. Asses the hazard. Estimate the probability of occurrence of different hazard events affecting the railway line, main road, and possible detouring routes.
3. Asses the risk. Quantify the consequences of the different hazard events hitting the linear infrastructures. Including the damages and repair coasts, downtime of infrastructures and extra amount of time needed for detours, usually along considerably smaller roads.
4. Develop and design sustainable cutting-edge risk mitigation strategies. In this regard we will put a special focus on Nature Based Solutions (NBS) and Early Warning Systems.
5. Asses the change in the risk profiles in the area with future climate and demographic changes.