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Spatial pattern of recent rainfall trends in Serbia (1961–2009)

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Abstract

This paper examines a spatial pattern of annual, seasonal and monthly rainfall trends in Serbia. The study used data from 63 weather stations between the period of 1961–2009. The rainfall series was examined by applying the nonparametric method of the Mann–Kendall test and Sen’s method to determine the significance and magnitude of the trends. Significant trends have not been detected for the whole country at an annual scale. Seasonal trends at the confidence level of 97.5 %, however, indicate a slight decrease in winter (5 stations out of 63) and spring (7 stations out of 63) precipitation and an increase in autumn precipitation (10 stations out of 63). Results for monthly rainfall trends also generally showed a nonsignificant trend with the exception of a negative trend in May (6 stations out of 63) and positive trend for October (9 stations out of 63). Calculated global autocorrelation statistics (Moran’s I) indicate a random spatial pattern of rainfall trends on annual, seasonal and monthly timescales with exceptions for March, June and November. Overall, results suggest that only weak, mostly nonsignificant trends are present in Serbia in the period 1961–2009.

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  1. http://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/plotGoogleMaps/index.html.

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Acknowledgments

This study was supported by the Serbian Ministry of Education and Science, under Grants No. III 43007, III 47014, TR 36035 and TR 36020.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Belgrade, Faculty of Geography, Belgrade, Serbia

    Jelena Luković

  2. Department of Geodesy and Geoinformatics, University of Belgrade, Faculty of Civil Engineering, Belgrade, Serbia

    Branislav Bajat, Dragan Blagojević & Milan Kilibarda

Authors
  1. Jelena Luković
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  2. Branislav Bajat
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  3. Dragan Blagojević
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  4. Milan Kilibarda
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Correspondence to Jelena Luković.

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Luković, J., Bajat, B., Blagojević, D. et al. Spatial pattern of recent rainfall trends in Serbia (1961–2009). Reg Environ Change 14, 1789–1799 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10113-013-0459-x

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