Temporal and spatial distribution of extreme precipitation indices over the lake Urmia Basin, Iran

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

1 Department of Geography, Payam-e-Noor University, Tehran, Iran.

2 Assistant Professor, Department of Geography, Urmia University, Urmia, Iran

Abstract

Climate extremes have more direct and significant impact than average state on social and
ecological systems. In this study temporal and spatial distribution of extreme precipitation
events were analyzed based on the daily precipitation data of seven meteorological stations
in the Lake Urmia Basin in Iran from 1987 to 2014. Eleven indices of precipitation
extremes were selected and calculated using the RClimDex software. The Mann-Kendall
test was employed to assess trend in extreme precipitation indices, and the Sen's Estimator
test was used to determine the slope of the significant trends. Results demonstrate that
consecutive dry days (CDD) exhibit an increasing trend. The other indices of precipitation
extremes, Consecutive wet days (CWD), heavy precipitation days (R10mm), heavier
precipitation days (R20mm), heaviest precipitation days (R25mm), maximum 1-day
precipitation (RX1day), maximum 5-day precipitation (RX5day), very wet day
precipitation (R95), extremely wet day precipitation (R99), simple daily intensity index
(SDII), and wet-day precipitation (PRCPTOT) show decreasing trend and time of change in
most indices starting from 1995-1996. However, all the linear trends for each index are not
statistically significant. Decreasing trends in precipitation days were greater than those in
precipitation indices. The slope of trends in extreme precipitation indices showed that the
highest slope of the decreasing trend occurred in wet-day precipitation, consecutive dry
days and very wet day precipitation. Spatial distribution for precipitation extremes
exhibited a declining trend in most regions in the Lake Urmia Basin. Furthermore, the
extreme precipitation indexes had positive correlations with the annual total precipitation,
and their correlation coefficients were statistically significant at the 1% significance level,
except for consecutive dry days.

Keywords


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