Spatial and temporal variations of precipitation: case study of Zhanghe River Basin, P. R. China

Paper Details

Research Paper 01/09/2015
Views (215) Download (4)
current_issue_feature_image
publication_file

Spatial and temporal variations of precipitation: case study of Zhanghe River Basin, P. R. China

Bakhtawar Wagan, Hakimzadi, Zulfiqar Ali
J. Bio. Env. Sci.7( 3), 76-86, September 2015.
Certificate: JBES 2015 [Generate Certificate]

Abstract

From the day first droughts and over wettings remains important in the economic development of humankind. In this study, monthly and annual trends of precipitation were analyzed for eight different weather stations in the Zhanghe River Basin, China over 30 years period (1980–2010). Prior to applying MK (Mann-Kendall test), trend-free Pre-whitening (TFPW) approach was applied to eliminate serial correlations in the time series data. The Mann-Kendall and Sen’s slope methods were used to ascertain the trends in the precipitation data. The results demonstrated both positive (increasing) as well as negative (decreasing) trends at the 90, 95 and 99% significance levels. The present study further revealed that the variability in the spatial distribution of precipitation trends were highly significant. In the month of February, most of the stations had upward precipitation trends (99% significance level) whereas that of March showed a downward trend in the Anyang station (99% significance level). This study mainly points out that there is a high probability of water scarcity occurrence in this region. The information provided in this study is therefore useful in drought assessment in this particular region. It is also concluded that the Mann-Kendall and Sen’s tests are suitable for the precipitation trend analysis in the study area.

VIEWS 3

Brunnetti M, Buffoni L, Maugeri M,  Nanni T. 2001. Trends in daily intensity of Precipitation in Italy from 1951 to 1996. International Journal of Climatology 21, 299–316.

Ding Y. 1994. Monsoons over China. Kluwer Academic Publishers, 419.

Gemmer M, Becker S, Jiang T. 2004. Observed monthly precipitation trends in China 1951–2002. Theoretical and Applied Climatology 77, 39–45.

Gocic M, Trajkovic S. 2013. Analysis of changes in meteorological variables using Mann Kendall and Sen’s slope estimator statistical tests in Serbia. Global Planet. Change 100, 172–182.

Hisdal H, Stahl K, Tallaksen LM, Demuth S. 2001. Have stream flow droughts in Europe become more severe or frequent? International Journal of Climatology 21(3), 317–333.

Ijaz A, Deshan T, TianFang W, Mei W, Bakhtawar W. 2015. Precipitation Trends over Time Using Mann-Kendall and Spearman’s rho Tests in Swat River Basin, Pakistan. Advances in Meterology 2015, 15 p.

Kendall MG. 1975. Rank Correlation Methods. Griffin, London, UK.

Khalili D, Farnoud T, Jamshidi H, Kamgar-Haghighi AA, Zand-Parsa SH. 2011. Comparability analyses of the SPI and RDI meteorological drought indices in different climatic zones. Water Recourse Management 25(6), 1737– 1757.

Koleva E, Alexandrov V. 2008. Drought in the Bulgarian low regions during the 20th century. Theoretical Applied Climatology 92(1–2), 113–120.

Mann HB. 1945. Nonparametric tests against trend. Econometrical 13, 245–259.

Mishra AK, Singh VP. 2010. A review of drought concepts. Journal of Hydrology 354(1–2), 202–216.

Moreira EE, Coelho CA, Paulo AA, Pereira LS, Mexia JT. 2008. SPI- based drought category prediction using log-linear models. Journal of Hydrology 354(1–4), 116–13.

Onoz B, Bayazit M. 2003. The power of statistical tests for trend detection. Turkish Journal of Engineering and Environmental Sciences 27, 247– 251.

Paulo AA, Pereira LS. 2008. Stochastic prediction of drought class transitions. Water Resources Management 22, 1277–1296.

Ruiz Sinoga JD, Garcia Marin R, Martinez Murillo JF, Gabarron Galeote MA. 2011. Precipitation dynamics in southern Spain: trends and cycles. International Journal of Climatology 31(15), 2281–2289.

Sen PK. 1968. Estimates of the regression coefficient based on Kendall’s tau. Journal of the American Statistical Association 63, 1379–1389.

Shahid S. 2008. Spatial and temporal characteristics of droughts in the western part of Bangladesh. Hydrological Processes 22(13), 2235–2247.

Song Y, Achberger C, Linderholm HW. 2011. Rain-season trends in precipitation and their effect in different climate regions of China during 1961– 2008,” Environmental Research Letters 6(3).

Tabari H, Abghari H, HosseinzadehTalaee P. 2012. Temporal trends and spatial characteristics of drought and rainfall in arid and semiarid regions of Iran. Hydrological Processes 26(22), 3351–3361.

Tolika K, Maheras P. 2005. Spatial and temporal characteristics of wet spells in Greece. Theoretical and Applied Climatology 81, 71–85.

Zhai PM, Ren FM. 1999.  On change of China’s maximum and minimum temperatures in 1951–1990. Acta Meteorologica Sinica 13(2), 278–290.

Zhang X, Wan. 2004. Trends in total precipitation and frequency of daily precipitation extremes over China. Journal of Climatology 18, 1096-1108.