Rainfall analysis in Uma Oya basin, Sri Lanka

Abstract

Climate change is believed to be a critical issue and there is enough evidence to identify the impact of climate change. Sri Lanka is expected to be one of the most affected countries from adverse impact of climate change. Various climatic models propose a rise of rainfall intensity to south Asian region while the number of rainy days are to be reduced. Therefore, the necessity is raised to find the clear trends in climatic factors in the region. However, a very few research work was carried out to see the climatic changes over the last few decades in Sri Lanka. Temporal variation of precipitation (rainfall) can be a good indicator to identify the trends in climate. In addition, these rainfall variations are used in many engineering aspects, including design of massive civil engineering structures like dams, design of water supply networks, etc. Furthermore, the rainfall variations are not only important in engineering aspects but also heavily in agriculture. Therefore, this research paper presents an analysis of temporal variation of rainfall in Uma Oya basin, Sri Lanka. Initial results show some interesting trends in rainfall over a period of 24 years. Furthermore, research is being conducted using advanced statistical data analysis techniques to present comprehensive trends in rainfall in Uma Oya basin