Internship – Case study on the implementation of the RatingShiftHappens methodology for estimating detarage after extreme events (floods) in the Alpine arc.

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INRAE presentation

The French National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food, and Environment (INRAE) is a major player in research and innovation. It is a community of 12,000 people with 272 research, experimental research, and support units located in 18 regional centres throughout France. Internationally, INRAE is among the top research organisations in the agricultural and food sciences, plant and animal sciences, as well as in ecology and environmental science. It is the world’s leading research organisation specialising in agriculture, food and the environment. INRAE’s goal is to be a key player in the transitions necessary to address major global challenges. Faced with a growing world population, climate change, resource scarcity, and declining biodiversity, the Institute has a major role to play in building solutions and supporting the necessary acceleration of agricultural, food and environmental transitions.

Work environment, missions and activities

Time series of river discharge (or “hydrographs”) are essential data for any study or decision-making related to water resources, hydrological risks, and aquatic environments. However, discharge rates cannot be measured directly and continuously: they are obtained from measurements of water heights, which can be measured continuously and converted into discharge rate using rating curves (height- discharge relationship model). To this end, gaugings of water heights and discharge play a crucial role, as they enable these ratings curves to be established and calibrated.

In recent years, the River Hydraulics team (INRAE, UR RiverLy, Villeurbanne) has developed and distributed the BaRatinAGE software (Le Coz et al., 2014) (GitHub link and documentation: BaRatin documentation site) to assist in estimating calibration curves for hydrometric stations.  The backend of the BaRantinAGE software is a Bayesian modeling framework (BaM: GitHub link, documentation: pdf link on GitHub) for which an R package (RbaM: GitHub link) already exists on the official repository (Rcran link).

One of the issues associated with the use of rating curves is that they become invalid when hydraulic controls change, for example due to modifications to the riverbed during floods (Mansanarez et al., 2019). To solve this problem, the BaM, RbaM, and BaratinAGEYeYepyERyE software now incorporates the RatingShiftHappens methodology (Darienzo, 2021; Darienzo et al. 2021; Mendez-Rios et al., 2024), for which an R package is also available (GitHub RatingShiftHappens link) and will soon be available on the official R repository (RCran). The implementation of another methodology, “SPD”, which allows for the estimation of hydraulic configuration parameters (Mansanarez et al., 2019), is also planned for BaM, RBaM, and BaRatinAGE in the coming months.

The software and methodologies developed at INRAE enable automatic detection of rating shifts and estimation of the family of rating curves (SPD). The aim of this internship is to implement tests and case studies of the various methodologies proposed using RbaM and/or BaRatinAGE at different stations for Alpine rivers that have experienced significant flooding due to extreme events:

- Rivers in Slovenia affected by the 2023 floods (Šraj and Bezak, 2025), for which data is already available for 10 stations.

- Stations on rivers in France could be analyzed after consultation with various hydrometric units (Aix, Grenoble, Annecy) or with EDF's technical department.

- Depending on the time available, work could also be done on stations in Switzerland in consultation with our contacts there.

Internship Goals 

This internship aims to implement and test the use of methodologies available in RatingShift Happens, BaRatinAGE, RbaM, and via R packages for extreme events in the Alpine arc. The following objectives will be pursued:

• Virtual site visits (photos/videos, Google Earth/Street View, flood reports, etc.) and, if possible, in-person visits.
• Development of hydraulic control matrices for the various stations.
• Data retrieval for stations in France: obtain flow measurements from various sources and import them, understand their uncertainties.
• Obtain/calculate and derive rating curves before and after extreme events through automatic detection of rating shifts. Other methods, such as the recession method or cumulative sediment transport estimation, may also be tested and implemented.
• Interact with station managers to analyze stations and operational practices for managing calibration errors, and prepare to transfer methods to operational staff.
• Calculate flow series using these new calibration curves and compare them to official flows, including uncertainty in the results.
• Perform a frequency analysis of flow return periods before and after the characterization of extreme events (using either internal tools such as Jbay, Stoods) or other R packages. This would be done with the aim of emulating previous studies (e.g., Lang et al., 2025; Lucas, 2024) that integrate the entire processing chain, from hydrometry to frequency.
• Compare our results with those found in the scientific press, the local press, and those reported by governments for comparison purposes in coordination with hydrometric units.

Ultimately, and if possible, the internship could lead to the writing of a scientific jouranl article that could potentially be published.

The intern will potentially have the opportunity to visit nearby sites. He or she will also collaborate with technical contacts in France, potentially in Switzerland, and with professors (researchers) at the University of Ljubljana (Slovenia).

Training and skills

-Master student needing an internship to complete their diploma

-Training in hydraulics and/or hydrology, interest in hydrometry, river hydraulics, enjoyment of teamwork and multidisciplinary work

-R programming, knowledge of Git would be a plus.

-Good oral and written communication skills through a good level of spoken, written, and read English would be desirable but is not essential.

INRAE's life quality

By joining our teams, you benefit from (depending on the type of contract and its duration):

- up to 30 days of annual leave + 15 days "Reduction of Working Time" (for a full time);
- parenting support: CESU childcare, leisure services;
- skills development systems: training, career advise;
- social support: advice and listening, social assistance and loans;
- holiday and leisure services: holiday vouchers, accommodation at preferential rates;
- sports and cultural activities;
- collective catering, travel expenses covered

How to apply

I send my CV and my motivation letter