Spatiotemporal variability and trend of rainfall and temperature in Sidama Regional State, Ethiopia

This study aims to investigate spatiotemporal variability, trends, and anomaly in rainfall and temperature in the Sidama region, Ethiopia. The TerraClimate gridded dataset on a monthly time scale for 30 years (1991–2020) with a horizontal resolution of approximately 4 km was used for the study. Trends in annual and seasonal rainfall and temperature were assessed using a nonparametric test (Mann-Kendal test) and Sen’s slope to test the statistical significance and magnitude of trends (increase/decrease), respectively. Our findings revealed that annual rainfall, summer (Hawado), and spring (Badhessa) rainfall have shown an increasing trend in most parts of the region, except for its northwest parts. We found a low annual rainfall variability (CV < 13%) over the southeastern and northwestern parts of the region. Rainfall variability revealed the difference in both time and space across the region. Six drought years (1999, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2012, and 2019) with different magnitudes were identified across the region. Annual average maximum (up to 0.4 °C decade−1) and minimum (up to 0.25 °C decade−1) temperatures revealed significantly increasing trends across the region. The standardized anomaly in the mean annual temperature indicated that the years in the recent decade (2011–2020) are getting warmer compared to the past two decades (1991–2010) due to natural and anthropogenic activities causing weather extremes in the region. The results of this study for rainfall contradict the other studies in the rift valley part of the region. Therefore, we suggest appropriate climate change adaptation strategies so that there is high rainfall and temperature variability across the region and between seasons.