Time Series Analysis of Rainfall Variability at North Jordan: A Case Study at Yarmouk River Basin

Abstract

Abstract Water represents a key challenge to sustain the progress of Jordan. Providing healthy drinking water, along with current scarcity is one of the most major constraints in the water sector. This paper pursues to investigate the Spatio-temporal distribution of rainfall variability for time slice 1985-2014 over the Yarmouk River Basin (YRB) – Jordan side. Ten rainfall gauges were selected within the basin over the observation period. Applying two nonparametric statistical tests; Mann-Kendall to detect the rainfall trend in YRB, and Kolmogorov–Smirnov to detect the variations of rainfall distribution. Besides, the GIS spatial analyst tool was utilised to create interpolated rainfall map using the Thiessen polygons method. The results indicated that YRB will witness a potential decline in annual rainfall in most stations. Further, a shift in rainy season timing 2 and 58 days was observed at late in the start of the season (SoS) and 2 to 48 days for an early end of the season (EoS) on a decade’s basis accompanied by the significant uptrend in the long-term.