Vattentillgång och höga flöden i Sverige under 1900-talet

Water resources and floods in Sweden were studied with respect to trends and occurrence, with emphasis on the period 1901-2000. Two periods stand out when it comes to annual runoff: the 1920s, and the two last decades in the study period, with a runoff anomaly compared to the whole century of about +8%. The 1970s was the driest decade, with a runoff about 9 % below the century average. The most deviating 30-year period was 1951-80 with an anomaly of -5 % compared to 1901-2000. The few records that are available from the 19th century indicate an even higher runoff, but at lower temperatures. A linear regression to the runoff <luring the whole 20 th century gives an increase of 4 %, but the change was not statistically significant. The analysis of flood peaks suffers from uncertainties in the data. Flood peaks in old data were probably underestimated, since readings were made less frequently than today. A linear regression to annual flood peaks <luring the period 1911-2000 indicates an increase with about 10 %. This increase is almost significant at the 95 % level. The clearest increase was, however, found in basins with the less reliable observations. A smaller increase was obtained for an alternative selection of stations, which were considered to be more reliable. No significant trend was found in the selection of more reliable data. Seen in a shorter perspective, the autumn floods increased considerably <luring the period 1970-2000. Similar autumn floods, were, however; experienced in the 1920s. No increased frequency of very high floods, with a retum period of at least 10 years, could be determined