Spatial–temporal variation of precipitation concentration and structure in the Wei River Basin, China

Abstract

It is of significant importance to investigate precipitation structure and precipitation concentration due to their great impact on droughts, floods, soil erosion, as well as water resources management. A complete investigation of precipitation structure and its distribution pattern in the Wei River Basin was performed based on recorded daily precipitation data in this study. Two indicators were used: concentration index based on daily precipitation (CID), to assess the distribution of rainy days, and concentration index based on monthly precipitation (CIM), to estimate the seasonality of the precipitation. Besides, the modified Mann–Kendall trend test method was employed to capture the variation trends of CID and CIM. The results indicate that: (1) the 1–3-day events are the predominant precipitation events in terms of the occurrence and fractional contribution; (2) the obvious differences in the CID of various areas are found in the Wei River Basin, and the high CID values mainly concentrate in the northern basin, conversely, the southern basin has a relatively low CID value; (3) high CIM values are primarily in the western and northern basin, reflecting a remarkable seasonality of precipitation in these regions; and (4) all of the stations show a downward trend of CIM, which indicates that the monthly precipitation distribution tends to be more uniform.