Preprint Article Version 1 Preserved in Portico This version is not peer-reviewed

Agroclimatic Zone-Based Analysis of Long-Term Rainfall Trends and Variability in the Wabi Shebele River Basin, Ethiopia.

Version 1 : Received: 8 August 2022 / Approved: 11 August 2022 / Online: 11 August 2022 (08:52:32 CEST)

A peer-reviewed article of this Preprint also exists.

Toni, A.T.; Malcherek, A.; Kassa, A.K. Agroclimatic Zone-Based Analysis of Rainfall Variability and Trends in the Wabi Shebele River Basin, Ethiopia. Water 2022, 14, 3699. Toni, A.T.; Malcherek, A.; Kassa, A.K. Agroclimatic Zone-Based Analysis of Rainfall Variability and Trends in the Wabi Shebele River Basin, Ethiopia. Water 2022, 14, 3699.

Abstract

Any change in the amount and annual distribution of rainfall causes a major socioeconomic and environmental problem where rainfed agriculture is predominant. For that reason, the objective of this study was to determine the long-term variability and trends of precipitation in the Wabi Shebele River Basin (WSRB), Ethiopia. The basin was discretized into 7 local agroclimatic zones (ACZ) based on annual rainfall and elevation. In this study, the coefficient of variation (CV) was used to check the variability of rainfall and modified Mann-Kendall (MK) and Innovative Trend Analysis (ITA) methods were used to detect rainfall trends. For each ACZ, stations with long-term records and less than 10 % missing data were selected for further analysis. The mean annual rainfall in the basin ranges from 227.2 mm to 1047.4 mm. The study revealed most of the ACZs showed a very high variation in Belg/Spring season rainfall (CV % > 30) than Kiremt/Summer and annual rainfall. Trend analysis revealed that no uniform trend was detected among ACZs at each temporal scale. But, most ACZ in the arid and semi-arid areas showed a non-significant decreasing trend. In comparison, a similar result was observed using MK and ITA methods.

Keywords

agroclimatic zone; trend analysis; modified MK; ITA; Wabi Shebele

Subject

Environmental and Earth Sciences, Atmospheric Science and Meteorology

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