Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

Rainfall and rainy days trend in Iran

  • Published:
Climatic Change Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

In this study, long-term annual and monthly trends in rainfall amount, number of rainy days and maximum precipitation in 24 h are investigated based on the data collected at 33 synoptic stations in Iran. The statistical significance of trend and climate variability is assessed by the Mann-Kendall test. The Linear trend analysis and the Mann-Kendall test indicate that there are no significant linear trends in monthly rainfall at most of the synoptic stations in Iran. However, the maximum number of stations with negative trends have been observed in April (29 station), and then in May (21 stations) and February (21 stations) and with positive trends in December (26 stations) and July (24 stations). The significant linear trends, with a significant level of 0.05, in annual rainfall have been noticed only at five stations. The monthly number of rainy days does not show any significant linear trend for most areas in Iran. The maximum number of stations with monthly negative trends in rainy days has also been observed in April with the minimum in December. In April, out of 24 stations with negative trends, 12 stations have a significant negative trend. Contrary to that, in October there is no significant linear trend. Most stations have positive trends in annual number of rainy days. Also, the monthly maximum precipitation in 24 h does not show any significant linear trend for most areas in Iran. The maximum number of stations with monthly negative trends in maximum precipitation has also been observed in February with the minimum in December. In spite of that, there are almost no significant precipitation variations in Iran during the last 50-odd years, the tendency of decreasing rainfall amount in April and increasing rainfall amount in December and July could indicate an eventual climate change in this area in the future.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Fig. 6
Fig. 7
Fig. 8
Fig. 9

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Aerts JCJH, Droogers P (2004) Climate change in contrasting river basins: adaptation strategies for water, food, and environment. Biddles Ltd, King’s Lynn, 306

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Burn DH (1994) Hydrologic effects of climate changes in west central Canada. J Hydrol 160:53–70

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ceballos A, Martinez-Fernandes J, Lu-engo-Ugidos MA (2004) Analysis of rainfall trends and dry periods on a pluviometric gradient representative of Mediterranean climate in Duero Basin, Spain. J Arid Environ 58:215–233

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Domroes M, El-Tantawi A (2005) Recent temporal and spatial temperature changes in Egypt. Int J Climatol 25:51–63

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Forland EJ, van England A, Ashcroft J, Dahlstrom B, Damaree G, Frich P, Hanssen-Bauer I, Heino R, Jonsson T, Meitus M, Muller-Westemeier G, Palsdottir T, Tuomenvirta H, Vedin H (1996) Change in normal precipitation in the north Atlantic Region (2nd edn.). DNMI Report 7/96 Klima

  • González-Hidalgo JC, De Luis M, Raventos J, Sanchez JR (2001) Spatial distribution of seasonal rainfall trends in a western Mediterranean area. Int J Climatol 21:843–860

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Helsel DR, Hirsch RM (2002) Statistical methods in water resources. US Geological Survey

  • Herath S, Ratnayake U (2004) Monitoring rainfall trends to predict adverse impacts: a case study from Sri Lanka (1964–1993). Global Environ Change 14:71–79

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hess TM, Stephens W, Maryah UM (1995) Rainfall trends in the north east arid zone of Nigeria (1961–1990). Agr Forest Meteorol 74:87–97

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hirsch RM, Slack JR, Smith RA (1982) Techniques of trend analysis for monthly water quality data. Water Resour Res 1:107–121, Climatically

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hunt BG (2000) Natural climatic variability and Sahelian rainfall trends. Glob Planet Chang 24:107–131

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • IPCC (2007) Climate change 2007: Synthesis report. Valencia, Spain

    Google Scholar 

  • Jiang T, Su B, Hartmann H (2006) Temporal spatial trends of precipitation & river flow in the Yangtze River Basin, 1961–2000. Geomorphology 85:143–154

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kahya E, Kalayc S (2004) Trend analysis of stream flow in Turkey. J Hydrol 289:128–144

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Khalili A, Bazrafshan J (2004) A trend analysis of annual, seasonal and monthly precipitation over Iran during the last 116 years. Biaban 9:25–33

    Google Scholar 

  • Mander WJ (1994) Dictionary of Global Climatic Change, 2nd edn. VCL, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Manton MJ, Della-Marta PM, Haylock MR, Hennessy KJ, Nicholls N, Chambers LE, Collins DA, Daw G, Finet A, Gunawan D, Inape K, Isobe H, Kestin TS, Lefale P, Leyu CH, Lwin T, Maitrepierre L, Ourprasitwong N, Page CM, Pahalad J, Plummer N, Salinge MJ, Suppiah R, Tran VL, Trewin B, Tibig I, Yee D (2001) Trend in extreme daily rainfall and temperature in Southeast Asia and the South Pacific: 1961–1998. Int J Climatol 21:269–284

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Modarres R, Sarhadi A (2009) Rainfall trends analysis of Iran in the last half of the twentieth century. J Geophys Res 114:D03101, doi:10.1029/2008JD010707

  • Modarres R, Silva V (2007) Rainfall trends in arid & semi—arid regions of Iran. J Environ 70:344–355

    Google Scholar 

  • Mosmann V, Castro A, Fraile R, Dessens J, Sanchez JL (2004) Detection of statistically significant trends in the summer precipitation of mainland Spain. Atmos Res 70:43–53

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pasquini AI, Lecomte KL, Piovan EL, Depetris PJ (2006) Recent rainfall & run off variability in central Argentina. Quat Int 1:127–139

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Piccareta M, Capolongo D, Boenzi F (2004) Trend analysis of precipitation and drought in Basilicata from 1923 to 2000 within a southern Italy context. Int J Climatol 24:907–922

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rahimzadeh F, Fatahi A, Hosseni Dastak SF (2005) Evaluation of variability of Climate with applying statistical methods in Iran. Iran Water Resour Res 2(1):61–73

    Google Scholar 

  • Ramos MC (2001) Rainfall distribution pattern and their change over time in a Mediterranean area. Theor Appl Climatol 69:163–170

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Raziei T, Arasteh PD, Saghafian B (2005) Annual rainfall trend in arid & semi–arid regions of Iran. ICID21st European regional Conference, 15–19 May 2005—Frankfurt (Oder) and Slubice—Germany and Poland, 20–28

  • Robert M, Slack H, Slack JR, Smith A (1984) A nonparametric trend test for seasonal data with serial dependence. Water Resour Res 6:727–732

    Google Scholar 

  • Schonwiese CD, Rapp J (1997) Climate trend atlas of Europe based on observations 1891–1990. Kluwer Academic, Dordrecht

    Google Scholar 

  • Xu ZX, Takeuchi K, Ishidaira H (2003) Monotonic trend and step changes in Japanese precipitation. J Hydrol 279:144–150

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Xu ZX, Takeuchi K, Ishidaira H, Li JY (2005) Long-term trend analysis for precipitation in Asia Pacific Friend river basin. Hydrol Process 19:3517–3532

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Yu PS, Yang TC, Kuo CC (2006) Evaluating long-term trends in annual and seasonal precipitation in Taiwan. Water Resour Manag 20:1007–1023

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • 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 259:254–271

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Natural Resources, Isfahan University of Technology, Isfahan, Iran, 84156-83111

    Saeed Soltani, R. Saboohi & L. Yaghmaei

Authors
  1. Saeed Soltani
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. R. Saboohi
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. L. Yaghmaei
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Saeed Soltani.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Soltani, S., Saboohi, R. & Yaghmaei, L. Rainfall and rainy days trend in Iran. Climatic Change 110, 187–213 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-011-0146-1

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-011-0146-1

Keywords

Search

Navigation