Assessing spatiotemporal trends of total and extreme precipitation in a subtropical highland region: A climate perspective

Abdulnoor Ali Jazem Ghanim; Muhammad Naveed Anjum; Ghulam Rasool; Saifullah; Muhammad Irfan; Saifur Rahman; Salim Nasar Faraj Mursal; Usama Muhammad Niazi

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0289570

Assessing spatiotemporal trends of total and extreme precipitation in a subtropical highland region: A climate perspective

PLoS One. 2023 Aug 4;18(8):e0289570. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0289570. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Abdulnoor Ali Jazem Ghanim¹, Muhammad Naveed Anjum², Ghulam Rasool², Saifullah², Muhammad Irfan³, Saifur Rahman³, Salim Nasar Faraj Mursal³, Usama Muhammad Niazi⁴

Affiliations

¹ Civil Engineering Department, College of Engineering, Najran University, Najran, Saudi Arabia.
² Department of Land and Water Conservation Engineering, Pir Mehr Ali Shah Arid Agriculture University Rawalpindi, Rawalpindi, Pakistan.
³ Electrical Engineering Department, College of Engineering, Najran University, Najran, Saudi Arabia.
⁴ Department of Mechanical Engineering Technology, National Skills University Islamabad, Islamabad, Pakistan.

Abstract

This study used a dataset of 30 years (1990-2020) of daily observations from 24 meteorological stations in the northern highlands of Pakistan to assess trends in extreme precipitation indices. The RClimDex model was used to analyze the indices, and the Modified Mann-Kendal test and the Theil-Sen slope estimator were applied to determine trends and slopes, respectively. The results showed a significant decrease in total annual precipitation amount (PRCPTOT) with varying rates of negative trend from -4.44 mm/year to -19.63 mm/year. The total winter and monsoon precipitation amounts were also decreased during the past three decades. The intensity-based precipitation indices (RX1Day, RX5Day, R95p, R99p, and SDII) showed a significant decrease in extreme intensity events over time, while the count of consecutive dry days (CDD) and consecutive wet days (CWD) indicated a significant decrease in duration at multiple stations. The annual counts of days with precipitation more than or equal to 10 mm (R10), 20 mm (R20), and 25 mm (R25) exhibited a significant decrease in frequency of extreme precipitation events, with the decrease more pronounced in the northern parts of the study domain. The findings of this study indicate a significant decline in the intensity, frequency, and extent of precipitation extremes across the northern highlands of Pakistan over the past 30 years.

Copyright: © 2023 Ghanim et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Climate Change*
Pakistan
Seasons

Grants and funding

This study received financial support from the Deanship of Scientific Research, Najran University, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, for funding this work under the Distinguish Research Funding Program in the form of a grant (NU/DRP/SERC/12/17). No additional external funding was received for this study. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.