Title: Rainfall variability and trends in arid and semi arid Iran, using Mann-Kendall test

Authors: Abdol Rassoul Zarei

Addresses: Department of Range and Watershed Management, College of Agricultural Science, Fasa University, 74681-77375, Iran

Abstract: The goals of this paper are to examine climatic phenomenon in arid and semi-arid Iran, to investigate these results for signs of climate change, and to explore the policy implications for climate adaptation. The result of this paper show that the annual rainfall has decreasing trend in eight stations. Decreasing trend in Ahvaz, Hamedan and Oroomieh are significant. Monthly rainfall trends are generally towards drier conditions. Iran Shahr and Kerman show significantly decreasing rainfall trends of −0.65 and −0.47 mm/month for January, and Yazd has a significantly decreasing trend of −0.19 mm/month in February. September has significantly decreasing trends for Iran shahr. June has significantly decreasing trends for Oroomieh and Yazd. The number of rainy days per year shows that trend at 50% of stations is decreasing: Esfahan, Hamedan, Iran Shahr, Oroomieh, Tabass and Tehran but only the trend at Esfahan (−0.5 day per annual) is significant.

Keywords: rainfall variability; arid regions; semi-arid regions; Iran; Mann-Kendall test; climate change; policy implications; climate adaptation; precipitation trends.

DOI: 10.1504/IJHST.2016.077386

International Journal of Hydrology Science and Technology, 2016 Vol.6 No.3, pp.285 - 299

Received: 15 Jul 2015
Accepted: 07 Oct 2015
Published online: 29 Jun 2016 *

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