Rainfall Trend in Semi Arid Region – Yerala River Basin of Western Maharashtra, India

The rainfall is the one of the fundamental physical parameter among the climate as for the development of society is concern and it determines the drought as well as the environmental factors for the particular region. Timeseries of annual rainfall, number of rainy-days per year and monthly rainfall of 10 stations were analyzed to assess climate variability in semi-arid region of Western Maharashtra. The results showed mixed trends of increasing and decreasing rainfall, which were statistically signi cant (p < 0.05 and p < 0.01) only for Koregaon and Palus stations by the Mann–Kendall test. Also, with the exception of Vita and Vaduj stations there was no statistically signi cant trend in the mean number of rainy-days per year. Increasing and decreasing monthly rainfall trends were found over large continuous areas in the study region. These trends were statistically signi cant mostly during the winter and spring seasons, suggesting a seasonal movement of rainfall concentration. Results also showed that there is no signi cant climate variability in the semi-arid environment of Western Maharashtra.