Jostedøla (or ''Jostedalselva'') is a river which runs through the

Jostedal Jostedal is a former municipality in the old Sogn og Fjordane county in Norway. The municipality existed from 1838 until its dissolution in 1963. It was located in the Jostedalen valley in the northern part of the present-day municipality of ...

en valley in Luster Municipality in

Vestland Vestland is a county in Norway established on 1 January 2020. The county is located in Western Norway and it is centred around the city of Bergen, Norway's second largest city. The administrative centre of the county is the city of Bergen, whe ...

county,

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and t ...

. The Jostedøla river begins near the ''Fåbergstølen'' mountain farm where the runoff from the great

Jostedalsbreen Jostedal Glacier or is the largest glacier in continental Europe. It is in Vestland county in Western Norway. Jostedalsbreen lies in the municipalities of Luster, Sogndal, Sunnfjord, and Stryn. The highest peak in the area is Lodalskåpa at a ...

glacier and the lakes Austdalsvatnet and Styggevatnet comes together in the Jostedalen valley. It then flows south for about , through the

Jostedalen Jostedalen is a river valley in Luster Municipality in Vestland county, Norway. The long valley runs from the Lustrafjorden at the village of Gaupne, to the north along the river Jostedøla and along the eastern side of the Jostedal Glacier. The ...

valley, and finally empties into the Gaupnefjorden (a small arm off of the Sognefjorden) at the village of

Gaupne Gaupne is the administrative center of the municipality of Luster in Vestland county, Norway. The village is located along the Gaupnefjorden, an arm of the Lustrafjorden, about north of the village of Hafslo. The village of Veitastrond is loc ...

. The river is the main collector of water for an watershed area. The river is great for fishing

trout Trout are species of freshwater fish belonging to the genera '' Oncorhynchus'', '' Salmo'' and '' Salvelinus'', all of the subfamily Salmoninae of the family Salmonidae. The word ''trout'' is also used as part of the name of some non-sa ...

and some

salmon Salmon () is the common name In biology, a common name of a taxon or organism (also known as a vernacular name, English name, colloquial name, country name, popular name, or farmer's name) is a name that is based on the normal language of ...

. The river has historically brought significant flooding. In August 1979, the river had a 100-year flood due to local rain and strong snow and glacial melting. The flood was higher than the previous one-hundred year flood in 1898. The Leirdøla power plant was built in 1978, which has helped reduce the flood risk along the waterway.

References

Rivers of Vestland Luster, Norway Rivers of Norway {{Norway-river-stub

See also

References