Rainfall Variability and Drought Occurrences in the Batticaloa District, Sri Lanka

• Authors: K. Rajendram
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

Due to recent climate changes and monsoon variability, the amount, pattern, and intensity of rainfall are significantly changing in many Asian countries. This paper attempts to study the annual and seasonal rainfall patterns and their variability, and the occurrence of droughts. Monthly rainfall data have been collected from the Department of Meteorology, Colombo, from 1871-2020 for Batticaloa station. The Standard Deviation, Coefficient of Variation least-square trend had computed for annual and seasonal rainfall to study the rainfall variability as whole and different epochs. To study the drought scenario Standardized Precipitation Index had computed, and then the drought was categorized based on the SPI criteria, and the drought severity had distinguished. Spatial rainfall distribution maps had prepared using Arc GIS 10.4 software. The Standard Deviation and the Coefficient of annual rainfall variation are 423.9 and 24.8%, respectively. The epochal variability results reveal that the variability of rainfall is higher in 1961-1990 (CV: 28.9%), which indicates the low dependability, while variability is lower in the epochs of 1931-1960 (CV: 17.7%) and 1871-1900 and (19.6%) respectively. The long-term rainfall trend (1871-2020) results reveal the increasing trend and its r2 = 0.0271. However, only the epoch 1961-1990 shows a downward trend with r2 = 0.2398. The rainfall anomaly results reveal the extreme drought had occurred in 1968 and 1889. The severe droughts had occurred in 1998, 1983, 1981, 1980, 1909, and 1890. Out of 150 years of data periods, 25 years had been identified as drought years. The probability of drought occurrence is P = 0.167. Terefore once in five to six years, drought could have occurred.

Keywords

EN

Drought Occurrence; Rainfall Trend; Rainfall Variability; Strandred Deviation

Discipline

• CLIMATOLOGY_&_WATER_MANAGEMENT: CLIMATOLOGY & WATER_MANAGEMENT

• Publisher: Scientific Publishing House „DARWIN”
• Journal: World News of Natural Sciences
• Year: 2021
• Volume: 39
• Pages: 30-45

Contributors

author

K. Rajendram

• Department of Geography, Eastern University, Vantharumoolai, Chenkalady, 30350, Sri Lanka

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• Document Type: article