Assessing Rainfall Variability and Trends in the Era of Climate Change

The book analyzes spatial and temporal rainfall variability across Madhya Pradesh using 70 years (1951-2020) of high-resolution gridded rainfall data. Statistical trend analysis was conducted using the Mann-Kendall test Sen's slope estimator and the Modified Mann-Kendall test (after removing serial correlation through pre-whitening) at a 5% significance level. The dataset was divided into pre-industrial (1951-1985) and post-industrial (1986-2020) periods for temporal comparison. Rainfall trends were evaluated seasonally and monthly using R Studio (packages trend and modifiedmk) and spatially visualized in ArcGIS 10.3.1. Results show increasing pre-monsoon rainfall during the pre-industrial period with Barwani and Balaghat experiencing the greatest changes. Monsoon trends varied spatially with post-industrial years showing an overall increase-maximum rise in Dhar (+0.3922 mm/yr) and decline in Bhind (-0.3286 mm/yr). Post-monsoon and winter rainfall exhibited minimal variation. On a monthly scale March and April showed notable increases particularly in Shajapur district.