Abstract
Long-term spatial and temporal trends of rainfall at monthly, seasonal, and annual scales have been studied for 12 meteorological stations of the Gangetic West Bengal located in Eastern India during 1901–2002 using 102 years of rainfall data. The non-parametric Mann-Kendall test and Sen’s slope estimator were used to detect trends and their slope. The changes are calculated in percentage over the time period. The results highlight a marked increase in post-monsoon (33.87%), the overall increase in annual (2.61%), a considerable decrease in winter (14.83%) as well as pre-monsoon (4.03%), and an inconsequential increase in monsoonal (1.21%) rainfall. In the annual and monsoonal series, the trend is positive in the southern half but negative in the northern counterpart. A considerable decrease in rainfall during June and August at most stations signifies that monsoon is losing in the early monsoonal months with an occurrence of mid-season dry spells. The increase in rainfall during September (13.80%) and October (34.38%) reveals that the monsoon is shifting toward these late monsoon and post-monsoon months, respectively. Both the decrease of rainfall in June (early monsoonal month), as well as an increase in rainfall in September (late monsoonal month) and October (start of post-monsoonal month), suggest that the monsoon is being delayed on its onset and withdrawal. In the Rarh region, monsoon rainfall is reducing whereas post-monsoon rainfall is increasing. In the Deltaic region, both monsoon and post-monsoon rainfalls are increasing. Such altering patterns of rainfall call for reviewing the agricultural practices and water use in this region.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
AD-GoWB: Agriculture Department, Govt. of West Bengal (2009) State agricultural plan for West Bengal. http://wwwrkvynicin/static/SAP/WB/WBPDF. Accessed 3 November 2015
Alexandersson H (1986) A homogeneity test applied to precipitation data. Int J Climatol 6(6):661–675. https://doi.org/10.1002/joc.3370060607
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
Bagchi K (1944) The Ganges delta. University of Calcutta Press, Calcutta, pp 1–157
Bagchi K, Mukerjee KN (1983) Diagnostic survey of West Bengal(s), Department of Geography, Calcutta University, Pantg Delta &Rarh Bengal; pp 17-19, 42–58
Bagchi K, Mukherjee KN (1978) Diagnostic survey of deltaic West Bengal, Department of Geography, Calcutta University, Government of West Bengal, India, pp 46–48
Baines PG, Folland CK (2007) Evidence for a rapid global climate shift across the late 1960s. J Clim 20:2721–2744. https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI4177.1
Bandyopadhyay S, Kar NS, Das S, Sen J (2014) River systems and water resources of West Bengal: a review. Geological Society of India Special Publication, No 3, pp 63–84. https://doi.org/10.17491/cgsi%2F2014%2F62893
Bollasina MA, Ming Y, Ramaswamy V (2011) Anthropogenic aerosols and the weakening of the south Asian summer monsoon. Science 334(6055):502–505. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1204994
Brekke LD, Kiang JE, Olsen JR, Pulwarty RS, Raff DA, Turnipseed DP, Webb RS, White KD (2009) Climate change and water resources management: a federal perspective. US Geological Survey Circular, 1331, pp 65 http://pubsusgsgov/corc/1331. Accessed 18 December 2015
Buishand TA (1982) Some methods for testing the homogeneity of rainfall records. J Hydrol 58(1–2):11–27. https://doi.org/10.1016/0022-1694(82)90066-X
Campbell-Lendrum D, Corvalán C (2007) Climate change and developing-country cities: implications for environmental health and equity. J Urban Health 84(Suppl 1):109–117. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11524-007-9170-x
CCSP (2007) Effects of climate change on energy production and use in the United States. In: Wilbanks TJ, Bhatt V, Bilello DE, Bull SR, Ekmann J, Horak WC, Huang YJ, Levine MD, Sale MJ, Schmalzer DK, Scott MJ (eds) A report by the US climate change science program and the subcommittee on global change research. Department of Energy, Office of Biological & Environmental Research, Washington DC, p 160 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/237743167_For_the_Report_as_a_Whole_CCSP_2007_Effects_of_Climate_Change_on_Energy_Production_and_Use_in_the_United_States_A_Report_by_the_US_Climate. Accessed 29 January 2017
Chaudhary A, Abhyankar VP (1979) Does precipitation pattern foretell Gujarat climate becoming arid. Mausam 30(1):85–90
Cleveland WS (2012a) Robust locally weighted regression and smoothing scatterplots. J Am Stat Assoc 74(368):829–836. https://doi.org/10.1080/01621459.1979.10481038
Cleveland WS (2012b) Graphs in scientific publications. Am Stat 38(4):261–269. https://doi.org/10.1080/00031305.1984.10483223
Dahmen ER, Hall MJ (1990) Screening of hydrological data: tests for stationarity and relative consistency, Publication: 49, ILRI, Wageningen, The Netherlands. http://edepot.wur.nl/71119
Das PK, Dutta D, Sharma JR, Dadhwal VK (2016) Trends and behaviour of meteorological drought (1901-2008) over Indian region using standardized precipitation-evapotranspiration index. Int J Climatol 36(2):909–916. https://doi.org/10.1002/joc.4392
Dash SK, Jenamani RK, Kalsi SR, Panda SK (2007) Some evidence of climate change in twentieth-century India. Clim Chang 85(3–4):299–321. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-007-9305-9
Diodato N, Ceccarelli M, Bellocchi G (2008) Decadal and century-long changes in the reconstruction of erosive rainfall anomalies in a Mediterranean fluvial basin. Earth Surf Process Landf 33(13):2078–2093. https://doi.org/10.1002/esp.1656
DoIW-GoWB: Department of Irrigation and Waterways, Govt. of West Bengal (2014) Annual flood report for the year 2013, Directorate of Advance Planning, Project Evaluation & Monitoring Cell, Kolkata, 112p
Dong G, Zhang H, Moise A, Hanson L, Liang P, Ye H (2016) CMIP5 model-simulated onset, duration and intensity of the Asian summer monsoon in current and future climate. Clim Dyn 46(1–2):355–382. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-015-2588-z
Dore MHI (2005) Climate change and changes in global precipitation patterns: what do we know? Environ Int 31(8):1167–1181. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envint.2005.03.004
DoSPI-GoWB: Department of Statistics and Programme Implementation, Govornment of West Bengal (2012) Economic review: 2011–12, Bureau of Applied Economic Statistics, 305p
Duhan D, Pandey A (2013) Statistical analysis of long term spatial and temporal trends of precipitation during 1901-2002 at Madhya Pradesh, India. Atmos Res 122:136–149. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.atmosres.2012.10.010
Farhana S, Rahman MM (2011) Characterizing rainfall trend in Bangladesh by temporal statistics analysis. In: Noor, Amin, Bhuiyan, Chowdhury, Kakoli (eds) Proceedings of the 4th Annual Paper Meet and 1st Civil Engineering Congress (2011) Dhaka, Bangladesh December 22-24. www.iebconferences.info/359.pdf. Accessed 19 September 2015
Farooqi AB, Khan AH, Mir H (2005) Climate change perspective in Pakistan. Pak J Meteorol 2(3):11–21 http://www.pmd.gov.pk/rnd/rnd_files/vol2_Issue3/2.%20CLIMATE%20CHANGE%20PERSPECTIVE%20IN%20PAKISTAN.pdf. Accessed 1 October 2015
Gadgil S (1996) Climate change and agriculture-an Indian perspective. In: Abrol YR, Gadgil S, Pant GB (eds) Climate variability and agriculture. Narosa, New Delhi, pp 1–18
Gadgil S (2012) Monsoon variability, climate change and agriculture. In: Rina SK, Manogyan RP (eds) Yojana: a development monthly, July 2012, 56. The Publications Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Govornmentof India, New Delhi, pp 19–23
Ghosh KG (2016a) Spatial and temporal analysis of rainfall trend over Gangetic West Bengal, eastern India in the context of climate change. Landscape 2:73–96
Ghosh KG (2016b) Long range climatic variability over Birbhum District, West Bengal and their impact on rainfed Aman crop in the context of climate change: adoption and mitigation. In: Chattopadhyay PK, Kushwaha DS (eds) Rural health, women empowerment and agriculture: issues and challenges, 1st edn. New Delhi Publishers, India, Chap 21, pp 277–298
Ghosh KG (2016c) Intensity-duration-frequency and trend of droughts over Gangetic West Bengal, eastern India: spatial and temporal (1901-2002) analysis. In: 36th INCA International Congress on Cartography for Analysis and Management of Climate Change, 09-11th November 2016
Ghosh S, Das D, Kao SC, Ganguly AR (2012) Lack of uniform trends but increasing spatial variability in observed Indian rainfall extremes. Nat Clim Chang 2:86–91. https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate1327
Goswami BN, Venugopal V, Sengupta D, Madhusoodanam MS, Xavier PK (2006) Increasing trend of extreme rain events over India in a warming environment. Science 314(5804):1442–1445. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1132027
Haldar AK, Thampi CJ, Sehgal J (1992) Soils of West Bengal for optimizing land use. NBSS Publication 27b. Technical Bulletin, National Bureau of Soil Survey and Land Use Planning, Nagpur, India
Hu ZZ, Yang S, Wu R (2003) Long-term climate variations in China and global warming signals. J Geophys Res 108(D19):4614. https://doi.org/10.1029/2003JD003651
IMD (2012) Annual climate summary 2012. National Climate Centre, Pune, India. http://imdpunegovin/Clim_RCC_LRF/Annual_Climate_Summary/annual_summary_2012pdf. Accessed 30 November 2013
IPCC: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (2007) Climate change, impacts, adaptation and vulnerability. Contribution of Working Group II to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 1–976
Islam S (ed) (2006) Encyclopedia of Bengal. Asiatic Society of Bangladesh, Asiatic Civil Military Press, Dhaka
Jagannathan P, Parthasarathy B (1973) Trends and periodicities of rainfall over India. Mon Weather Rev 101:371–375
Kar B, Saha J, Saha JD (2012) Analysis of meteorological drought: the scenario of West Bengal. Indian J Spat Sci 3(2):1–11
Kendall MG (1975) Rank correlation methods. Griffin, London
Khaliq MN, Ouarda TBMJ (2007) On the critical values of the standard normal homogeneity test (SNHT). Int J Climatol 27(5):681–687. https://doi.org/10.1002/joc.1438
Khan TMA, Singh OP, Rahman MS (2000) Recent sea level and sea surface temperature trends along the Bangladesh coast in relation to the frequency of intense cyclones. Mar Geod 23(2):103–116. https://doi.org/10.1080/01490410050030670
Kisi O, Ay M (2014) Comparison of Mann–Kendall and innovative trend method for water quality parameters of the Kizilirmak River, Turkey. J Hydrol 513(26):362–375. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2014.03.005
Koteswaram P, Alvi SMA (1969) Secular trends and periodicities in rainfall at west coast stations in India. Curr Sci 38(10):229–231
Krishnakumar KN, Prasada Rao GSLHV, Gopakumar CS (2009) Rainfall trends in twentieth century over Kerala, India. Atmos Environ 43(11):1940–1944. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.atmosenv.2008.12.053
Kumar V, Jain SK (2009) Trends in seasonal and annual rainfall and rainy days in Kashmir valley in the last century. Quat Int 212(1):64–69. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quaint.2009.08.006
Kumar V, Jain SK (2011) Trends in rainfall amount and number of rainy days in river basins of India (1951-2004). Hydrol Res 42(4):290–306. https://doi.org/10.2166/nh.2011.067
Kumar RK, Pant GB, Parthasarathy B, Sontakke NA (1992) Spatial and sub seasonal patterns of the long term trends of Indian summer monsoon rainfall. Int J Climatol 12(3):257–268. https://doi.org/10.1002/joc.3370120303
Lal M (2001) Climatic change-implications for India’s water resources. J Soc Econ Dev III(1):57–87 www.isec.ac.in/JSED/JSED_V3_I1_57-87.pdf. Accessed 30 November 2013
Lal M (2003) Global climate change: India’s monsoon and its variability. J Environ Stud Policy 6(1):1–34 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/281402625_Global_climate_change_India's_monsoon_and_its_variability. Accessed September 19 2016
Lana X, Martínez MD, Serra C, Burgueño A (2004) Spatial and temporal variability of the daily rainfall regime in Catalonia (Northeastern Spain), 1950-2000. Int J Climatol 24(5):613–641. https://doi.org/10.1002/joc.1020
Longobardi A, Villani P (2010) Trend analysis of annual and seasonal rainfall time series in the Mediterranean area. Int J Climatol 30(10):1538–1546. https://doi.org/10.1002/joc.2001
Mall RK, Singh R, Gupta A, Srinivasan G, Rathore LS (2006) Impact of climate change on Indian agriculture: a review. Clim Chang 78(2–4):445–478. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-005-9042-x
Mall RK, Bhatia R, Pandey SN (2007) Water resources in India and impact of climate change. JalvigyanSameeksha (Hydrol Rev) 22:157–176 https://wwwresearchgatenet/publication/307546127_Water_resources_in_India_and_impact_of_climate_change. Accessed September 19 2016
Mann HB (1945) Nonparametric tests against trend. Econometrica 13(3):245–259. https://doi.org/10.2307/1907187
Min SK, Kwon WT, Park EH, Choi Y (2003) Spatial and temporal comparisons of droughts over Korea with East Asia. Int J Climatol 23(2):223–233. https://doi.org/10.1002/joc.872
Mirza MQ (2002) Global warming and changes in the probability of occurrence of floods in Bangladesh and implications. Glob Environ Chang 12(2):127–138. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0959-3780(02)00002-X
Misra S (2006) Weather and climate of West Bengal. Government of West Bengal, June, XLVIII (6):17–28. http://www.wbgov.com/BanglarMukh/Download?FilePath=/alfresco/d/d/workspace/SpacesStore/1111a108-a276-4849-9719-38629b02144f/Chap-Wcw_17.PDF. Accessed 30 November 2013
Mooley DA, Parthasarthy B (1984) Fluctuations of all India summer monsoon rainfall during 1871–1978. Clim Chang 6(3):287–301. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00142477
Naidu CV, Durgalakshmi K, Muni Krishna K, Ramalingeswara Rao S, Satyanarayana GC, Lakshminarayana P, Malleswara Rao L (2009) Is summer monsoon rainfall decreasing over India in the global warming era? J Geophys Res 114(D24108). https://doi.org/10.1029/2008JD011288
Onoz B, Bayazit M (2012) Block bootstrap for Mann-Kendall trend test of serially dependent data. Hydrol Process 26(23):3552–3560. https://doi.org/10.1002/hyp.8438
Pant GB (2003) Long-term climate variability and change over monsoon Asia. J Indian Geophys Union 7(3):125–134 http://wwwiguin/7-3/2GBpantpdf. Accessed September 19 2016
Raghavendra VK (1974) Trends and periodicities of rainfall in sub-divisions of Maharashtra state. Indian J Meteorol Geophys 25:197–210
Rajeevan M, Bhate J, Jaswal AK (2008) Analysis of variability and trends of extreme rainfall events over India using 104 years of gridded daily rainfall data. Geophys Res Lett 35(18):L18707. https://doi.org/10.1029/2008GL035143
Ramanathan V, Crutzen PJ, Keihl JT, Rosenfeld D (2001) Aerosols, climate and the hydrological cycle. Science 294(5549):2119–2124. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1064034
Ramanathan V, Chung C, Kim D, Bettge T, Buja L, Kiehl JT, Washington WM, Fu Q, Sikka DR, Wild M (2005) Atmospheric brown clouds: impacts on south Asian climate and hydrologic cycle. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 102(15):5326–5333. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0500656102
Raucher RS (2011) The future of research on climate change impacts on water. A workshop focusing on adaptation strategies and information needs. Water Research Foundation and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 2011. http://www.waterrf.org/projectsreports/publicreportli brary/4340.pdf. Accessed 19 September 2015
Rautela P, Karki B (2015) Impact of climate change on life and livelihood of indigenous people of higher Himalaya in Uttarakhand, India. Am J Environ Prot 3(4):112–124. https://doi.org/10.12691/env-3-4-2
Rosenzweig C, Parry ML (1994) Potential impact of climate change on world food supply. Nature 367:133–138. https://doi.org/10.1038/367133a0
Roy S, Mukhopadhyay M (2012) Nor’wester–a cognitive study for environmental appraisal. Lambert Academic Publishing, Germany, p 104
Sarker RP, Thapliyal V (1988) Climate change and variability. Mausam 39:127–138
Savelieva NI, Semiletov IP, Vasilevskaya LN, Pugach SP (2000) A climate shift in seasonal values of meteorological and hydrological parameters for northeastern Asia. Prog Oceanogr 47(2–4):279–297. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0079-6611(00)00039-2
Sen PK (2012) 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
Sen AK, Sinha Ray KC (1997) Recent trends in drought affected areas in India. International symposium on tropical meteorology, INTROPMET-1997, IIT, New Delhi, India
Shi YF, Shen YP, Hu RJ (2002) Preliminary study on signal, impact and foreground of climatic shift from warm-dry to warm-humid in Northwest China. J Glaciol Geocryol 24(3):219–226
Shrestha AB, Wake CP, Dibb JE, Mayewski PA (2000) Precipitation fluctuations in the Nepal Himalaya and its vicinity and relationship with some large scale climatological parameters. Int J Climatol 20(3):317–327. https://doi.org/10.1002/(SICI)1097-0088(20000315)20:3<317::AID-JOC476>3.0.CO;2-G
Silva RM, Santos CAG, Macedo MLA, Silva L, Freire PKMM (2013) Space-time variability of rainfall and hydrological trends in the Alto São Francisco River basin. Proceedings of H01, IAHS-IAPSO-IASPEI assembly, Gothenburg, Sweden. IAHS-AISH Publ 359: 177–182. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/272621090
Sinha Ray KC, De US (2003) Climate change in India as evidenced from instrumental records. WMO Bull 52:53–59
Sinha Ray KC, Srivastava AK (1999) Is there any change in extreme events like droughts and heavy rainfall? INTROPMET-97, 2–5 December 1997, IIT New Delhi
Srivastava HN, Sinha Ray KC, Dikshit SK, Mukhopadhaya RK (1998) Trends in rainfall and radiation over India. Vayu Mandal 1:41–45
Surfer (1997) Surfer Mapping System, Ver 2 6.04. Golden Software, Golden
Thapliyal V, Kulshreshtha SM (1991) Climate changes and trends over India. Mausam 42:333–338
WBPCB: West Bengal Pollution Control Board (2009) A state of environment report: water resource and its quality in West Bengal, Kolkata, 352p
West Bengal State Action Plan on Climate Change (2010) Govt. of West Bengal, India. Available online: http://moef.nic.in/downloads/public-information/West-Bengal-SAPCC.pdf. Accessed 30 November 2013
WMO (1988) Analyzing long time series of hydrological data with respect to climate variability. World Meteorological Organization, Geneva
Yang XL, Xu LR, Liu KK, Li CH, Hu J, Xia XH (1966) Trend in temperature and precipitation in the Zhangweinan River basin during the last 53 years. Procedia Environ Sci 13:1966–1974. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.proenv.2012.01.190
Yue S, Hashino M (2003) Long term trends of annual and monthly precipitation in Japan. J Am Water Resour Assoc 39(3):587–596. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1752-1688.2003.tb03677.x
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
Acknowledgements
An earlier version of this article was presented at the National Conference on Climate change and extreme weather: Assessment of vulnerability for early warning, held at the Asutosh Centenary Hall, Kolkata, in 2016, and I should remain thankful to Prof. Sutapa Mukhopadhyay of the Visva-Bharati University and Dr. Swades Pal of the University of Gour Banga, West Bengal, India, for their counsel during initial draft of the manuscript. Additionally, I am thankful to Mr. Debapriya Roy, officer in charge, Flood Meteorological Office, Jalpaiguri, West Bengal, for his valuable information regarding available data base and appropriate methodology to be applied. I am also indebted to the Indian Meteorological Department for providing the data. I must thank the anonymous reviewers for constructive comments and suggestions. My heartfelt thanks go to Prof. Michael P. Peterson, Department of Geography/Geology, University of Nebraska at Omaha, USA, for scrutinizing the final drafts and suggesting changes which helped sharpening the manuscript. Lastly, I should also extend my gratefulness to the Editor in Chief of this journal, Prof. Haowen Yan, for being supportive and understanding all through the process.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Contributions
No other author had a role in the design of the study; in the collection, analyses, or interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript; and in the decision to publish the results.
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
This manuscript has not been published, accepted for publication, or under editorial review for publication elsewhere.
Conflict of interest
The author declares that she has no conflict of interest.
Ethical Approval
This research does not involve individual participants in the study, and thus ethical approval is not required.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Ghosh, K.G. Analysis of Rainfall Trends and its Spatial Patterns During the Last Century over the Gangetic West Bengal, Eastern India. J geovis spat anal 2, 15 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41651-018-0022-x
Published:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s41651-018-0022-x