Spatio-temporal variability of intra-monsoonal rainfall in Pravara-Mula River Basin, India

Abstract

An attempt has been made to study the intra-monsoonal spatio-temporal variability of rainfall (VoR) in the Pravara-Mula Basin (PMB) of Maharashtra state, India. This paper aims to investigate and analyze the spatio-temporal variation of the intra-monsoonal rainfall for the period of 31 years (1976–2006) considering 11 rain-gauge stations data. The precipitation concentration index (PCI) has been calculated by Oliver’s method and presented by graphic chronological treatment information (MGCTI) of Bertin matrix types which shows current trends of spatio-temporal analysis of intra-monsoonal rainfall variability. The distribution of average intra-monsoonal precipitation and isohyets maps were obtained by inverse distance weighting (IDW) interpolation technique using the GIS software. It was found that the distribution of intra-monsoonal rainfall is uneven and highly influenced by the regional topography of the region. The western part of the study area receives the highest rainfall (> 1500 mm), whereas in the eastern part rainfall is more erratic ( 20) of spatio-temporal precipitation distribution has been observed in the years 1987, 1988, 1990, 1991, and 1996. The strongly irregular variability is temporally associated with the year 1991, irregular variability in the years 1977 and 1994. In the years 1987, 1994, and 2004, the uniform distribution of rainfall is observed in PMB. This type of effort is innovative for bids in PMB and also in the other river basins which has similar geographical conditions for water resource management.