Trend Analysis of Precipitation and Temperature over Different Districts of Karnataka: An Aid to Climate Change Detection and Cropping System Option

Aims: To know the rainfall and temperature trend for all the districts of Karnataka state to develop suitable coping mechanisms for changing weather conditions during the cropping season.

Study Design: The available daily data of rainfall (1971-2011) and minimum and maximum temperature (1971-2007) for each district was collected from NICRA-ICAR website. A non-parametric model such as the Mann-Kendall (MK) test complemented with Sen’s slope estimator was used to determine the magnitude of the trend.

Place and Duration of Study: The rainfall data of 41 years (1971-2011) and temperature data of 37 years (1971-2007) was collected for all 27 districts of Karnataka.

Methodology: Basic statistics related to rainfall like mean, standard deviation (SD), the coefficient of variation (CV) and the percentage contribution to annual rainfall were computed for monthly and season-wise. Mann-Kendall test was used to detect trend for rainfall as well as temperature.

Results: An increasing trend in rainfall during winter, monsoon and annual basis for all most all the districts of Karnataka and decreasing trend of rainfall during pre and post-monsoon season was noticed. An early cessation of rainfall during September month in all most all the districts of Karnataka was observed. Similarly, monthly mean, maximum and the minimum temperature had shown an increasing trend over the past 37 years for all the districts of Karnataka.

Conclusion: The more variation in rainfall during the pre-monsoon season was observed, which is more important for land preparation and other operations. The increasing trend of maximum and minimum temperature throughout the year may often cause a reduction in crop yield. It is necessary to change crops with its short duration varieties in order to avoid late season drought.