Trend Analysis on Precipitation Time Series Data in Munda Catchment, Pakistan

Abstract

This paper investigates the trends in precipitation time series of 10 stations for the time period of 51 years (1961-2011) in the Munda catchment, Pakistan. The Mann-Kendall (MK) and Spearman’s rho (SR) tests were employed for detection of the trend on the seasonal and annual basis at 5% significance level. For the removal of the serial correlation Trend Free Pre-Whitening approach was applied. The results show, a mixture of positive (increasing) and negative (decreasing) trends. A shift in precipitation time series is observed on seasonal scale from summer to autumn season. The Charbagh station exhibits the most number of significant cases on the seasonal basis while, no significant trends are found at Thalozom, Kalam and Dir stations. On the annual basis, only Charbagh station shows a significant positive trend, while on other stations, no significant trends are found annually. The performance of MK and SR tests was consistent in detecting the trend at different stations.