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Analysis of climatic trends in the upper Blue Nile basin based on homogenized data

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Abstract

The headwater region of the upper Blue Nile is the main source of the Nile water for the three Eastern Nile countries, namely Ethiopia, Sudan, and Egypt. Climate-related studies for the region is thus paramount. However, previous studies for the region used non-homogenous data, and did not remove all the significant autocorrelations in trend analysis. Therefore, this study analyzed the trend using gap-filled and homogenized meteorological data over the period 1980 − 2017. Using the non-parametric Mann–Kendall test adjusted by effective sample size, the influence of all significant positive and negative autocorrelations on the trend was removed. Sen’s slope was used to determine the magnitude of trends. The tests were applied to minimum and maximum temperatures, mean temperature, diurnal temperature range (DTR), and total precipitation as well as seasonal and annual extreme climate indices. In general, the climate in the study region has become wetter and warmer. As for extreme temperature, the hot ends of the daily temperature distribution have altered more rapidly than the cold ends. Accordingly, the DTR exhibited a consistent increasing trend across the stations. The rainfall showed increases in maximum 1 − day precipitation amount, maximum 5 − day precipitation amount, number of heavy precipitation days, total annual rainfall, and extremely wet days. As trend magnitudes of the homogenized series differed from those of the original series, the results that emerged from the previous hydroclimate-related studies for the region using non-homogenized data should be revised. This study has significant implications for water use efficiency and adaptation to climate risk in the three riparian countries, given the recently commenced water resources projects.

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Acknowledgements

Part of this study was carried out with the financial support of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) through the International Postgraduate Study in Water Technology Program (IPSWaT). The authors would like to express their gratitude to the Ethiopian National Meteorological Agency (NMA) for providing the meteorological data. The authors appreciate the support provided by Prof. Lars Ribbe and Prof. Jürgen Heinrich to a preliminary version of the work.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Ethiopian Institute of Water Resources At Addis,, Ababa University, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

    Tekalegn Ayele Woldesenbet

  2. Institute for Technology and Resources Management in the Tropics and Subtropics (ITT), Technische Hochshule Köln, University of Applied Sciences, Cologne, Germany

    Tekalegn Ayele Woldesenbet & Nadir Ahmed Elagib

  3. Universität Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany

    Tekalegn Ayele Woldesenbet

  4. Institute of Geography, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, University of Cologne, Albertus-Magnus-Platz, 50923, Cologne, Germany

    Nadir Ahmed Elagib

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Tekalegn Ayele Woldesenbet: conceptualization, methodology, formal analysis, and writing—original draft. Nadir Ahmed Elagib: methodology and writing—review and editing.

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Woldesenbet, T.A., Elagib, N.A. Analysis of climatic trends in the upper Blue Nile basin based on homogenized data. Theor Appl Climatol 146, 767–780 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-021-03767-x

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