Spatial-temporal trend analysis of seasonal and annual rainfall (1966–2015) using innovative trend analysis method with significance test

This study investigates the spatial and temporal patterns of trends on seasonal (pre-monsoon, monsoon, post-monsoon, and winter) and annual rainfall time series data (1966–2015) at 13 stations located in the central Himalayan region of the Uttarakhand State of India. The temporal trend was analyzed using recently proposed innovative trend analysis (ITA) method with significance test. The results of the ITA method were compared with the Mann-Kendall (MK) test at 5% significance level. The spatial variation of the trends in seasonal and annual rainfall series was interpolated using the Thiessen polygon (TP) method in ArcGIS 10.2 environment. The results of comparison revealed that the trend detected by MK test (significantly positive in 3-time series and significantly negative in 6-time series) can be effectively identified using ITA (significantly positive in 19-time series and significantly negative in 32-time series). The ITA method could detect some trends that cannot be observed by the MK test. According to the spatial distribution of MK test, significantly increasing (decreasing) trends were observed in 1 (0), 1 (2), 0 (1), 1 (1), and 1 (1) polygons in pre-monsoon, monsoon, post-monsoon, winter, and annual rainfall data, while the ITA method detected significant trends in 3 (7), 6 (5), 1 (9), 4 (5), and 5 (6) polygons in the study region. The developed maps of spatial variability of rainfall trends may help the stakeholders and/or water resource managers to figure out the risk and vulnerability related to climate change in the study region.