Abstract
Abstract. The changing characteristics of aridity over a larger spatiotemporal scale have gained interest in recent years due to climate change. The long-term (1901–2016) changes in spatiotemporal patterns of annual and seasonal aridity during two major crop growing seasons of Pakistan, Kharif and Rabi, are evaluated in this study using gridded precipitation and potential evapotranspiration (PET) data. The UNESCO aridity index was used to estimate aridity at each grid point for all the years between 1901 and 2016. The temporal changes in aridity and its associations with precipitation and PET are evaluated by implementing a moving window of 50 years of data with an 11-year interval. The modified Mann–Kendall (MMK) trend test is applied to estimate unidirectional change by eliminating the effect of natural variability of climate, and Pettitt's test is used to detect year of change in aridity. The results revealed that the climate over 60 % of Pakistan (mainly in southern parts) is arid. The spatial patterns of aridity trends show a strong influence of the changes in precipitation on the aridity trend. The increasing trend in aridity (drier) is noticed in the southwest, where precipitation is low during Kharif, while there is a decreasing trend (wetter) in the Rabi season in the region which receives high precipitation due to western disturbances. The annual and Kharif aridity is found to decrease (wetter) at a rate of 0.0001 to 0.0002 per year in the northeast, while Kharif and Rabi aridity are found to increase (drier) at some locations in the south at a rate of −0.0019 to −0.0001 per year. The spatial patterns of aridity changes show a shift from arid to the semi-arid (wetter) climate in annual and Kharif over a large area while showing a shift from arid to hyper-arid (drier) region during Rabi in a small area. Most of the significant changes in precipitation and aridity are observed in the years between 1971 and 1980. Overall, aridity is found to increase (drier) in 0.52 %, 4.44 % and 0.52 % of the area and decrease (wetter) in 11.75 %, 7.57 % and 9.66 % of the area for annual, Rabi and Kharif seasons respectively during 1967–2016 relative to 1901–1950.
Highlights
More than 20 % of the global population is living in arid regions under the threat of severe consequences of climate change, due to increasing hydrological extremes (Alazard et al, 2015)
The main objective of the present study is to evaluate the changing characteristics of aridity based on precipitation and potential evapotranspiration (PET) annually and in two distinct cropping seasons (Rabi and Kharif) of Pakistan
The procedure used for the assessment of the changes in the characteristics of aridity in Pakistan is outlined below: 1. The aridity is estimated as the ratio of precipitation to PET at each Global Precipitation Climatology Centre (GPCC)–Climatic Research Unit (CRU) grid point for all the years during 1901–2016
Summary
More than 20 % of the global population is living in arid regions under the threat of severe consequences of climate change, due to increasing hydrological extremes (Alazard et al, 2015). Changes in precipitation have caused more hydrological extremes such as floods or droughts. The ecosystems of arid and semi-arid climates are sensitive to minor changes in climate (Ahmed et al, 2018). These regions are characterized by very complex hydrological systems due to high variability in precipitation, which often exhibits extreme behaviors, such as flash floods caused by extreme precipitation and extended droughts due to a prolonged dry spell (Buytaert et al, 2012). The droughts are projected to become more frequent and severe in arid regions due to an increase in aridity (Nam et al, 2015), as reported in Iran (Tabari et al, 2012), Serbia (Hrnjak et al, 2014), Turkey (Selek et al, 2018), Iraq
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