Abstract
During the twentieth century, the intensity and frequency of extreme events (e.g., storms and floods) have significantly altered globally due to human-induced climate change. Recently, it has been recognized that some regions in Egypt have exposed to extreme rainfall events which led in some cases to severe flash floods. In this work, the variability of rainfall characteristics in Egypt was investigated based on a detailed statistical analysis of historical rainfall records at 31 stations. Both parametric (Pearson) and non-parametric (Mann–Kendall and Spearman) tests were applied on annual and seasonal precipitation indices to examine temporal trends. A classification of significant trends was introduced to assess the degrees of their likelihood. The results detected significant trends in annual indices: maximum precipitation, total precipitation, simple daily intensity index, and number of rainy days at 29, 19, 19, and 13% of stations, respectively. Significant trends in seasonal indices were also found at a few stations. For all indices, 77% of the detected significant trends are negative concluding a decrease in the amount of precipitation in Egypt. Additionally, only 6% of the detected trends are classified as less likely, while the rest is likely and extremely likely, indicating a high probability of most detected trends. Generally, the detected trends do not form any spatial pattern in all cases. The results also provided a preliminary impression on the likely impacts of climate change on rainfall characteristics in Egypt.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Adamowski K, Bougadis J (2003) Detection of trends in annual extreme rainfall. Hydrol Process 17(18):3547–3560. https://doi.org/10.1002/hyp.1353
AhramOnline (2018) ‘Egypt’s top prosecutor orders report into ‘failure to manage’ heavy rain in New Cairo’, (Saturday 28 Apr 2018)
Alexandersson H, Moberg A (1997) Homogenization of Swedish Temperature Data. Part I: homogeneity test for linear trends. Int J Climatol 17(1):25–34. https://doi.org/10.1002/(SICI)1097-0088(199701)17:1<25::AID-JOC103>3.0.CO;2-J
Amirabadizadeh M, Huang YF, Lee TS (2015) Recent trends in temperature and precipitation in the Langat River Basin, Malaysia. Adv Meteorol 2015:1–16. https://doi.org/10.1155/2015/579437
Bani-Domi M (2005) ‘Trend analysis of temperatures and precipitation in Jordan’, Umm Al-Qura University Journal of Educational. Soc Sci Humanit 17(1):13–36
Barros VR, Boninsegna JA, Camilloni IA, Chidiak M, Magrín GO, Rusticucci M (2015) Climate change in Argentina: trends, projections, impacts and adaptation. Wiley Interdiscip Rev Clim Chang 6:151–169. https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.316
Brunetti M, Maugeri M, Nanni T (2001) Changes in total precipitation, rainy days and extreme events in Northeastern Italy. Int J Climatol 21(7):861–871. https://doi.org/10.1002/joc.660
Burn DH, Taleghani A (2013) Estimates of changes in design rainfall values for Canada. Hydrol Process 27(11):1590–1599. https://doi.org/10.1002/hyp.9238
Conrad JM, Kotani K (2014) Adapting to climate change. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-8631-7
Crisci A, Gozzini B, Meneguzzo F, Pagliara S, Maracchi G (2002) Extreme rainfall in a changing climate: regional analysis and hydrological implications in Tuscany. Hydrol Process 16(6):1261–1274. https://doi.org/10.1002/hyp.1061
Durbin J, Watson GS (1951) Testing for serial correlation in least squares regression. Biometrika 30:159–178
Egyptian Environmental Affairs Agency (2016) ‘Egypt Third National Communication’. Available at:https://unfccc.int/files/nationalreports/non-annex_i_parties/biennial_update_reports/application/pdf/tnc_report.pdf
Elmenoufy HM, Morsy M, Eid MM, El Ganzoury A, Wahab MMA (2017) Towards enhancing rainfall projection using bias correction method: case study Egypt Towards enhancing rainfall projection using bias correction method: case study Egypt, (September).
Elnazer AA, Salman SA, Asmoay AS (2017) Flash flood hazard affected Ras Gharib City, Red Sea, Egypt: a proposed flash flood channel. Nat Hazards 89:1389–1400. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-017-3030-0
Gado TA (2017) Statistical characteristics of extreme rainfall events in Egypt. Twentieth International Water Technology Conference, IWTC20, (May), pp. 18–20. Available at: http://iwtc.info/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/44.pdf.
Gado TA, Nguyen V (2013) Effect of climate change on annual flood peaks in Quebec. EIC Clim Change Technol Conf 2013(1569696769):1–11
Gotway C a, Helsel DR, Hirsch RM (2002) Statistical methods in water resources. Hydrol Anal Interpret 4(3):1–524. https://doi.org/10.2307/1269385
IPCC (2014) Climate change 2014: synthesis report, Core Writing Team. R.K. Pachauri and L.A, Meyer. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781107415324.004
Karpouzos DK, Kavalieratou S, Babajimopoulos C (2010) Trend analysis of precipitation data in Pieria Region (Greece). Eur Water 30:31–40
Kendall MG (1962) ‘Rank correlation methods’ Hafner, 3rd edn. Publishing Company, New York
Khadr M (2017) Recent trends and fluctuations of rainfall in the Upper Blue Nile River Basin, pp 451–466. https://doi.org/10.1007/698_2017_1.
Kousari MR, Zarch MAA (2011) Minimum, maximum, and mean annual temperatures, relative humidity, and precipitation trends in arid and semi-arid regions of Iran. Arab J Geosci 4(5):907–914. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12517-009-0113-6
Kousari MR, Ekhtesasi MR, Tazeh M, Naeini MAS, Zarch MAA (2011) An investigation of the Iranian climatic changes by considering the precipitation, temperature, and relative humidity parameters. Theor Appl Climatol 103(3–4):321–335. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-010-0304-9
Liuzzo L, Freni G (2015) Analysis of extreme rainfall trends in Sicily for the evaluation of depth-duration-frequency curves in climate change scenarios. J Hydrol Eng 20(12):04015036. https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)HE.1943-5584.0001230
Mann HB (1945) Nonparametric tests against trend. Econometrica 13:245–259
Mengistu D, Bewket W, Lal R (2014) Recent spatiotemporal temperature and rainfall variability and trends over the Upper Blue Nile River Basin, Ethiopia. Int J Climatol 34(7):2278–2292. https://doi.org/10.1002/joc.3837
Modarres R, de Paulo Rodrigues da Silva V (2007) Rainfall trends in arid and semi-arid regions of Iran. J Arid Environ 70(2):344–355. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaridenv.2006.12.024
Nashwan MS, Shahid S, Rahim NA (2018) Unidirectional trends in annual and seasonal climate and extremes in Egypt. Theor Appl Climatol. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-018-2498-1
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration | U.S. Department of Commerce. Available at: http://www.noaa.gov/. Accessed: 1 November 2016
Norrant C, Douguédroit A (2006) Monthly and daily precipitation trends in the Mediterranean (1950-2000). Theor Appl Climatol 83(1-4):89–106
Onyutha C, Tabari H, Taye MT, Nyandwaro GN, Willems P (2016) Analyses of rainfall trends in the Nile River Basin. J Hydro Environ Res 13:36–51
Philandras CM, Nastos PT, Kapsomenakis J, Douvis KC, Tselioudis G, Zerefos CS (2011) Long term precipitation trends and variability within the Mediterranean region. Nat Hazards Earth Syst Sci 11(12):3235–3250
Russia’s Weather - forecast, weather conditions, weather archive. Available at: http://meteo.infospace.ru/main.htm. Accessed: 1 November 2016
Santos M, Fragoso M (2013) Precipitation variability in Northern Portugal: data homogeneity assessment and trends in extreme precipitation indices. Atmos Res 131:34–45. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.atmosres.2013.04.008
Sen PK (1968) Estimates of the regression coefficient based on Kendall’ s Tau. J Am Stat Assoc 63(324):1379–1389. https://doi.org/10.1080/01621459.1968.10480934
Shalby A, Elshemy M, Zeidan BA (2018) Climate change impacts on the hydrodynamic characteristics of Lake Burullus, Coastal Lagoon ( Egypt ). In: Sixth International Conference on Estuaries and Coasts” (ICEC-2018)At: Caen, France
Shourav MSA, Shahid S, Singh B, Mohsenipour M, Chung E-S, Wang X-J (2017) Potential impact of climate change on residential energy consumption in Dhaka City. Environ Model Assess 23:131–140. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10666-017-9571-5
Suhaila J, Deni SM, Zawiah Zin WAN, Jemain AA (2010) Trends in Peninsular Malaysia rainfall data during the southwest monsoon and northeast monsoon seasons: 1975-2004. Sains Malays 39(4):533–542. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00703-010-0108-6
Tesemma ZK, Mohamed YA, Steenhuis TS (2010) Trends in rainfall and runoff in the Blue Nile Basin: 1964-2003. Hydrol Process 24(25):3747–3758. https://doi.org/10.1002/hyp.7893
Tramblay Y, El Adlouni S, Servat E (2013) Trends and variability in extreme precipitation indices over Maghreb countries. Nat Hazards Earth Syst Sci 13(12):3235–3248. https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-13-3235-2013
Valdes-Abellan J, Pardo MA, Tenza-Abril AJ (2017) Observed precipitation trend changes in the western Mediterranean region. Int J Climatol 37:1285–1296
Yates DN, Strzepek KM (1998) An assessment of integrated climate change impacts on the agricultural economy of Egypt. Clim Chang 38(3):261–287. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1005364515266
Yue S, Wang CY (2004) The Mann-Kendall test modified by effective sample size to detect trend in serially correlated hydrological series. Water Resour Manag 18(3):201–218. https://doi.org/10.1023/B:WARM.0000043140.61082.60
Yue S, Pilon P, Cavadias G (2002) Power of the Mann-Kendall and Spearman’s rho tests for detecting monotonic trends in hydrological series. J Hydrol 259(1–4):254–271. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0022-1694(01)00594-7
Zeleňáková M, Purcz P, Hlavatá H, Gargar I, Portela MM (2014) Statistical trends of precipitation in chosen climatic station in Slovakia and Libya. WSEAS Trans Environ Dev 10(1):298–305
Zhang Q, Singh VP, Peng J, Chen YD, Li J (2012) Spatial-temporal changes of precipitation structure across the Pearl River basin, China. J Hydrol 440–441:113–122. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2012.03.037
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Responsible editor: Philippe Garrigues
Publisher’s note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Gado, T.A., El-Hagrsy, R.M. & Rashwan, I.M.H. Spatial and temporal rainfall changes in Egypt. Environ Sci Pollut Res 26, 28228–28242 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-019-06039-4
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-019-06039-4