STUDY OF RAINFALL TRENDS AND VARIABILITY FOR BELGAUM DISTRICT

Amrutha Rani H R, Shreedhar R

Abstract: Rainfall patterns usually have spatial and temporal variability. This variability affects the agricultural production, water supply, transportation, the entire economy of a region, and the existence of its people. Agriculture would be seriously affected by increased variability and trends in the seasonal characteristics of rainfall in an environment where one of the major limiting factors of agricultural production is the amount of water available through rainfall. This dissertation work is an analysis of variations and trends in rainfall for Belgaum district, Karnataka. Some parts of Belgaum district receive annual rainfall less than 750 mm and hence are drought prone. To study the phenomenon of low rainfall in the district, statistical analysis of annual rainfall data from 42 rain gauge stations located in the district will be carried out. The length of data, for stations varies from 25 years to 33 years. The analysis is based on the series of tests designed to determine if the annual rainfall data is consistent, random and trend free. The trend in the data is determined by various methods such as Linear regression method etc. The different variability will be determined for stations. The Standard Precipitation Index (SPI) method will be used in this study to analyze Drought. Athani which is located in the north western part of Belgaum district is taken as the area of study because the area experiences frequent droughts and very few studies have been carried out for Athani before. The study concludes with the description of the structural characteristics and temporal and spatial variations of the annual rainfall data in Belgaum district

Keywords: Belgaum, Trends, Drought, Athani

DOI: https://doi.org/10.15623/ijret.2014.0318024