Abstract:
Seasonal and annual trends of changes in rainfall have been studied using monthly data series of 102 years (19W-2002) for 17 different districts of Punjab, India. Sen's non-parametric estimator of slope was used to estimate the magnitude of trend whose statistical significance was assessed by Mann-Kendall test. All the districts have shown increasing trend in annual rainfall. This increasing trend was found statistically significant for all districts except Hoshiarpur, Nawanshahr and Rupnagar. Similarly, all districts indicated increasing trend in monsoon, pre-monsoon and postmonsoon season. Increasing trend in monsoon rainfall was found significant for all districts except Gurdaspur, Hoshiarpur, Nawanshahr and Rupnagar. The winter rainfall was found to be decreasing (statistically non-significant) for all the districts.
