Abstract
Climate change in Pakistan has a great impact on the spatial and temporal variation of precipitation and ultimately alters the frequency and duration of droughts. In this study, spatial and temporal trend analyses of precipitation and droughts were observed at 58 meteorological stations across Pakistan from 1981 to 2018. The existing trend analysis methods were evaluated to address the issue of serial correlation in the climatic data. Results of precipitation analysis showed significant decreasing trends in winter (November, December) and significant increasing trends were observed in summer (June and September) at a confidence level of 95 percent. The magnitude of the precipitation trends showed the highest variation during summer season and the least variation in winter season. Rotated Principal Component (RPC) analysis showed the severe droughts (high positive loading) in southeastern side (Sindh province) of Pakistan due to lack of summer rains. Furthermore, variance correction approaches are identified as the most suitable in coping with the effect of serial correlation. The highest drought frequencies were observed in the southern areas of Pakistan and the drought events are expected to occur more frequently in the late winter, early spring, and early autumn, while droughts were expected to occur least frequently in summer.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Aamir E, Hassan I (2018) Trend analysis in precipitation at individual and regional levels in Baluchistan, Pakistan. IOP Conf Ser Mater Sci Eng 414:12–42. https://doi.org/10.1088/1757-899X/414/1/012042
Adnan S, Ullah K (2020) Development of drought hazard index for vulnerability assessment in Pakistan. Nat Hazards. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-020-04116-3
Adnan S, Ullah K, Gao S (2015) Characterization of drought and its assessment over Sindh, Pakistan during 1951–2010. J Meteorol Res 29:837–857. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13351-015-4113-z
Adnan S, Ullah K, Khan AH, Gao S (2017) Meteorological impacts on evapotranspiration in different climatic zones of Pakistan. J Arid Land 9:938–952. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40333-017-0107-2
Adnan S, Ullah K, Shuanglin L et al (2018) Comparison of various drought indices to monitor drought status in Pakistan. Clim Dyn 51:1885–1899. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-017-3987-0
Ahmad I, Tang D, Wang T et al (2015) Precipitation trends over time using Mann-Kendall and spearman ’ s rho tests in swat river basin, Pakistan. Adv Meteorol 2015:2–3
Ali N, Ahmad I (2015) Trend analysis of precipitation data in pakistan. Sci Int 27:803–808
Ali S, Khalid B, Kiani RS et al (2019) Spatio-temporal variability of summer monsoon onset over Pakistan. Asia-Pac J Atmos Sci 56:1–26
Amin M, Khan AA, Perveen A et al (2019) Drought risk assessment: a case study in Punjab, Pakistan. Sarhad J Agric 35:234–243. https://doi.org/10.17582/journal.sja/2019/35.1.234.243
Anjum SA, Wang L, Salhab J, Khan I, Saleem MF (2010) An assessment of drought extent and impacts in3 agriculture sector in Pakistan. J Food Agric Environ 8:1359–1363
Azam M, Park H, Maeng SJHK (2017) Regionalization of drought across South Korea using multivariate methods. Water 10:24. https://doi.org/10.3390/w10010024
Bhalme HN, Mooley DA (1980) Large-scale droughts/floods and monsoon circulation. Mon Weather Rev 108:1197–1211
Clarke RT (2010) On the (mis)use of statistical methods in hydro-climatological research. Hydrol Sci J 55:139–144. https://doi.org/10.1080/02626661003616819
Dinpashoh Y, Mirabbasi R, Jhajharia D et al (2014) Effect of short-term and long-term persistence on identification of temporal trends. J Hydrol Eng 19:617–625. https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)HE.1943-5584.0000819
Edwards DC, McKee TB (1997) Characteristics of 20th century drought in the United States at multiple time scales. AIR FORCE INST OF TECH WRIGHT-PATTERSON AFB OH
Farooqi AB, Khan AH, Mir H (2005) Climate change perspective in Pakistan. Pak J Meteorol 2:11–21
Gadiwala MS (2013) A study of drought over Sindh ( Pakistan ) using standardized precipitation index ( SPI ) 1951 to 2010. Pak J Meteorol 9:15–22
Gocic M, Trajkovic S (2013) Analysis of precipitation and drought data in Serbia over the period 1980–2010. J Hydrol 1:32–34
Grubbs FE (1950) Sample criteria for testing outlying observations. Ann Math Stat 21:27–58. https://doi.org/10.1214/aoms/1177729885
Guttman NB (1998) Comparing the palmer drought index and the standardize precipitation index. J Am Water Resour Assoc 34:113–121
Hanif M, Khan AH, Adnan S (2013) Latitudinal precipitation characteristics and trends in Pakistan. J Hydrol 492:266–272. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2013.03.040
Iqbal MF, Athar H (2018) Variability, trends, and teleconnections of observed precipitation over Pakistan. Theor Appl Climatol 134:613–632. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-017-2296-1
Kalayci S, Kahya E (2006) Assessment of streamflow variability modes in Turkey. J Hydrol 324:163–177
Kao SC, Govindaraju RS (2010) A copula-based joint deficit index for droughts. J Hydrol 380:121–134. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2009.10.029
Kao SC, Govindaraju RS, Niyogi D (2009) A spatio-temporal drought analysis for the Midwestern US. In: World environmental and water resources congress 2009: Great Rivers © 2009 ASCE 4654. pp. 4654–4663
Karavitis CA, Alexandris S, Tsesmelis DE, Athanasopoulos G (2011) Application of the standardized precipitation index (SPI) in Greece. Water (switzerland) 3:787–805. https://doi.org/10.3390/w3030787
Keyantash J, Dracup JA (2002) The quantification of drought: an evaluation of drought indices. Bull Am Meteorol Soc 83:1167–1180
Khalili D, Farnoud T, Jamshidi H et al (2011) Comparability analyses of the SPI and RDI meteorological drought indices in different climatic zones. Water Resour Manag 25:1737–1757. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11269-010-9772-z
Khaliq MN, Ouarda TBMJ, Gachon P et al (2009) Identification of hydrological trends in the presence of serial and cross correlations: a review of selected methods and their application to annual flow regimes of Canadian rivers. J Hydrol 368:117–130. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2009.01.035
Khan S, Gabriel HF, Rana T (2008) Standard precipitation index to track drought and assess impact of rainfall on watertables in irrigation areas. Irrig Drain Syst 22:159–177. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10795-008-9049-3
Kogan FN (1990) Remote sensing of weather impacts on vegetation in non-homogeneous areas. Int J Remote Sens 11:1405–1419. https://doi.org/10.1080/01431169008955102
Kumar S, Merwade V, Kam J, Thurner K (2009) Streamflow trends in Indiana: effects of long term persistence, precipitation and subsurface drains. J Hydrol 374:171–183. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2009.06.012
Latif Y, Yaoming M, Yaseen M (2018) Spatial analysis of precipitation time series over the upper indus basin. Theor Appl Climatol 131:761–775. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-016-2007-3
Libiseller C, Grimvall A (2002) Performance of partial Mann-Kendall tests for trend detection in the presence of covariates. Environmetrics 13:71–84. https://doi.org/10.1002/env.507
Liu Z, Wang Y, Shao M, Jia X, Li X (2016a) Spatiotemporal analysis of multiscalar drought characteristics across the Loess Plateau of China. J Hydrol 535:281–299
Mallick J, Talukdar S, Alsubih M et al (2021) Analysing the trend of rainfall in Asir region of Saudi Arabia using the family of Mann-Kendall tests, innovative trend analysis, and detrended fluctuation analysis. Theor Appl Climatol. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-020-03448-1
Mann HB (1945) Nonparametric Tests Against Trend. Econometrica 13:245. https://doi.org/10.2307/1907187
Mazhar N, Nawaz M, Mirza AI (2015) Socio-political impacts of meteorological droughts and their spatial patterns in Pakistan. South Asian Stud 30:149–157
Mckee TB, Doesken NJ, Kleist J (1993) The relationship of drought frequency and duration to time scales. In AMS 8th Conference on Applied Climatology pp. 179–184. doi: citeulike-article-id:10490403
Moreira EE, Coelho CA, Paulo AA et al (2008) SPI-based drought category prediction using loglinear models. J Hydrol 354:116–130. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2008.03.002
Oe A, Bl L, Ae L, Is S (2017) Spatio-temporal precipitation trend and homogeneity analysis in Komadugu-Yobe Basin, Lake Chad Region. J Climatol Weather Forecast 5:12. https://doi.org/10.4172/2332-2594.1000214
Paulo AA, Pereira LS (2007) Prediction of SPI drought class transitions using Markov chains. Water Resour Manag 21:1813–1827. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11269-006-9129-9
Paulo AA, Rosa RD, Pereira LS (2012) Climate trends and behaviour of drought indices based on precipitation and evapotranspiration in Portugal. Nat Hazards Earth Syst Sci 12:1481–1491. https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-12-1481-2012
Publishing B (2012) A Non-parametric approch to the change point problem. Appl Stat 28:126–135
Rao AR, Hamed KH, Chen HL (2003) Nonstationarities in hydrologic and environmental time series (Vol. 45). Springer Science & Business Media, Vancouver
Raziei T, Saghafian B, Paulo AA, Pereira LS, Bordi I (2009) Spatial patterns and temporal variability of drought in western Iran. Water 23:439
Raziei T, Bordi I, Pereira LS, Sutera A (2010) Space-time variability of hydrological drought and wetness in Iran using NCEP/NCAR and GPCC datasets. Hydrol Earth Syst Sci 14:1919–1930. https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-14-1919-2010
Sagarika S, Kalra A, Ahmad S (2014) Evaluating the effect of persistence on long-term trends and analyzing step changes in streamflows of the continental United States. J Hydrol 517:36–53
Salma S, Rehman S, Shah M (2012) Rainfall trends in different climate zones of Pakistan. Pak J Meteorol 9:37–47
Santos JF, Pulido-Calvo I, Portela MM (2010) Spatial and temporal variability of droughts in Portugal. Water Resour Res. https://doi.org/10.1029/2009WR008071
Seiler RA, Hayes M, Bressan L (2002) Using the standardized precipitation index for flood risk monitoring. Int J Climatol 22:1365–1376. https://doi.org/10.1002/joc.799
Sen PK (1968) Estimates of the regression coefficient based on Kendall’s tau. Am Stat Assoc 63:1379–1389
Seneviratne LG, Seneviratne SI (2015) European drought trends. Extrem Hydrol Events 369:75–79. https://doi.org/10.5194/piahs-369-75-2015
Serinaldi F, Kilsby CG (2016) The importance of prewhitening in change point analysis under persistence. Stoch Environ Res Risk Assess 30:763–777. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00477-015-1041-5
Shafer BA, Dezman LE (1982) Development of a surface water supply index (SWSI) to assess the severity of drought conditions in snowpack runoff areas. In: Proceedings of the 50th annual western snow conference. pp. 164–175
Shiau JT, Modarres R (2009) Copula-based drought severity-duration-frequency analysis in Iran. Meteorol Appl 16:481–489. https://doi.org/10.1002/met.145
Singh PK, Kumar V, Purohit RC et al (2009) Application of principal component analysis in grouping geomorphic parameters for hydrologic modeling. Water Resour Manag 23:325–339. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11269-008-9277-1
Tabari H, Talaee PH (2011) Temporal variability of precipitation over Iran from 1966–2005. J Hydrol 396:313–320
Tan X, Gan TY, Shao D (2017) Effects of persistence and large-scale climate anomalies on trends and change points in extreme precipitation of Canada. J Hydrol 550:453–465. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.JHYDROL.2017.05.028
Thorn HCS (1966) Some methods of climatological analysis. WMO Tech 81:16–22
Von Storch H, Zwiers FW (2002) Statistical analysis in climate research. Cambridge university press
Weghorst K (1996) The reclamation drought index: guidelines and practical applications. In: North American water and environment congress & destructive water. Pp. 637–642
Yevjevich VM (1967) An objective approach to definitions and investigations of continental hydrologic droughts (Doctoral dissertation, Colorado State University. Libraries)
Yue S, Wang CY (2002) Applicability of prewhitening to eliminate the influence of serial correlation on the Mann-Kendall test. Water Resour Res 38:4-1-4–7. https://doi.org/10.1029/2001WR000861
Yue S, Wang C (2004) The Mann-Kendall test modified by effective sample size to detect trend in serially correlated hydrological series. Water Resour Manag 18:201–218
Yue S, Pilon P, Phinney B, Cavadias G (2002) The influence of autocorrelation on the ability to detect trend in hydrological series. Hydrol Process 16:1807–1829
Acknowledgments
This work was supported by the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Korea and the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF-2020S1A5B8103910).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Lee, J.E., Azam, M., Rehman, S.U. et al. Spatio-temporal variability of drought characteristics across Pakistan. Paddy Water Environ 20, 117–135 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10333-021-00881-4
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10333-021-00881-4