Temporal analysis of rainfall and drought characteristics over Jalore District of S-W Rajasthan

Drought forecasting is being considered an important tool to help understand the rainfall pattern and climate change trend. Drought is a prolonged period of months or years in which an area, whether surface water or groundwater, becomes insufficient in its water supplies. Drought is considered as most difficult but least known environmental phenomenon, impacting more persons than any other. There are several indices used to classify droughts. For this study, precipitation-based drought indices are considered (i.e., SPI, RAI and Percentage Departure of Rainfall). The objective of the research is to examine and determine the possible rainfall trends over the Jalore district of South-West Rajasthan in Luni river basin. In this research, trend analysis using the rainfall data from the years 1901 to 2021 was carried out on monthly, seasonal and annual basis. To define the current trend path, the Mann-Kendall test and Sen's slope estimator test were used. In order to detect the trend and its change in magnitude over a particular period of time, Sen's slope estimator was used. During the southwest monsoon, declining rainfall leads to short-term meteorological droughts, which have severe effect on the agriculture sector and Jalore district's water supplies, while rising rainfall during other seasons tends to mitigate the severity of drought. The result of research reveals that there is rise of pre-monsoon and post-monsoon rainfall, but it also depicts a fall in the annual rainfall which reflects in reduced Winter and S-W monsoon rainfall.