Trend analysis of rainfall time series for Sindh river basin in India

The study of precipitation trends is critically important for a country like India whose food security and economy are dependent on the timely availability of water such as 83 % water used for agriculture sector, 12 % for industry sector and only 5 % for domestic sector. In this study, the historical rainfall data for the periods 1901–2002 and 1942–2002 of the Sindh river basin, India, were analysed for monthly, seasonal and annual trends. The conventional Mann-Kendall test (MK) and Mann-Kendall test (MMK), after the removal of the effect of all significant autocorrelation coefficients, and Sen’s slope estimator were used to identify the trends. Kriging technique was used for interpolating the spatial pattern using Arc GIS 9.3. The analysis suggested significant increase in the trend of rainfall for seasonal and annual series in the Sindh basin during 1901–2002.