Temporal precipitation trend analysis at the Langat River Basin, Selangor, Malaysia

Abstract

The Langat River Basin provides fresh water for about 1.2 million people in the Langat and Klang valleys. Any change in the pattern of rainfall could affect the quantity of water in the basin. Studying the pattern of change in rainfall is crucial for managing the available water resources in the basin. Thus, in this study, for the first time, both parametric and non-parametric methods were employed to detect rainfall trend in the basin for the period 1982–2011. The trends were determined at 30 rainfall stations using the Mann–Kendall (MK) test, the Sen’s slope estimator and the linear regression analysis. Lag-1 approach was utilized to test the serial correlation of the series. On the annual scale, it was found that most of the stations in the basin were characterized with insignificant trends. The significant trends were found only at the four stations, namely 44301, 44305, 44320 and 2719001. The results of the seasonal trend analysis showed that most of the stations during the northeast monsoon (NEM) and the inter monsoon 1 (INT1) seasons and half of the stations during the southwest monsoon (SWM) season experienced insignificant positive trends. To the contrary, for the inter monsoon 2 (INT2) season, majority of the stations showed negative trends. It was found that during the NEM season the station 44301, for the INT1 season stations 44301, 2719001 and 3118069 were established as having significant changes, while in the SWM season station 2917001 and during the INT2 season, the stations 2615131 and 44301 showed significant trends. It is worth mentioning that the maximum rainfall occurs in inter-monsoon seasons.