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    PublicationOpen Access
    Comparison of statistical methods to graphical methods in rainfall trend analysis – case studies from tropical catchments
    (https://www.hindawi.com/journals/amete/2019/8603586/, 2019-09-02) Rathnayake, U. S
    Time series analyses for climatic factors are important in climate predictions. Rainfall is being one of the most important climatic factors in today’s concern for future predictions; thus, many researchers analyze the data series for identifying potential rainfall trends. The literature shows several methods in identifying rainfall trends. However, statistical trend analysis using Mann–Kendall equation and graphical trend analysis are the two widely used and simplest tests in trend analysis. Nevertheless, there are few studies in comparing various methods in the trend analysis to suggest the simplest methods in analyzing rainfall trends. Therefore, this paper presents a comparison analysis of statistical and graphical trend analysis techniques for two tropical catchments in Sri Lanka. Results reveal that, in general, both trend analysis techniques produce comparable results in identifying rainfall trends for different time steps including annual, seasonal, and monthly rainfalls.
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    PublicationOpen Access
    Rainfall trend analysis in Uma Oya basin, Sri Lanka and future water scarcity problems in perspective of climate variability
    (https://www.hindawi.com/journals/amete/, 2019-04) Khaniya, B; Jayanayaka, I; Jayasanka, P; Rathnayake, P
    The effect of climate variability on the rainfall pattern is canvassed on the Uma Oya river basin, Sri Lanka, consisting of 5 rainfall gauging stations. The Uma Oya basin (720 km2) is given utmost precedence due to environmental concerns seen in the ongoing Uma Oya multipurpose development project (529 million USD worth) which is expected to divert water to the southeast dry zone of the country while adding 231 GWh/year electricity to the national grid. The rainfall data for a period of 26 years (1992–2017) were analysed using Mann–Kendall’s test and Sen’s slope estimator test to identify the rainfall trends. Both of these trend analysis test results depict only one negative trend for Hilpankandura Estate for the month of June; however, the seasonal trend analysis and annual trend analysis do not support this observation. Nevertheless, Mann–Kendall’s test showed potential positive trends for the 3 rainfall gauging stations Kirklees Estate, Ledgerwatte Estate, and Welimada Group only in the 1st intermediate period (March-April), and this is well supported by the monthly trend analysis. Other than these trends, the results do not show any significant negative trends in the Uma Oya catchment. Therefore, the results vividly explain that there is no threat of water scarcity to the catchment area being resistant to changing global climate for the past 26 years.