"International Journal of Geography, Geology and Environment"

Climate change is a long-term process and main issue of research now a days. The rainfall, it’s trends and variability are also affected by climate change and hence the study of rainfall, variability and future predictions are very much important for planning and management.

MP is the second largest state, in India and the fifth largest state in population. Its total area is 308,252 km2 and occupies 9.38% area of the country comprises of two meteorological subdivisions viz. East MP & West MP and ten agro-meteorological zones. The varying climatic conditions along with various geographical features have been responsible for drought and flood conditions in different parts of the state. Increasing population and urbanization of the state are causing adverse impacts on the natural environment. The long- term trends of rainfall are required for the planning of optimum adaptation strategies for sustainable use of water. The rainfall trends, its changes and variability are very important for understanding the impact of climate change at regional scale. The study focuses on temporal variation in rainfall at annual, seasonal & monthly scale over East & West MP meteorological subdivisions and MP state as a whole during the period 1871-2016. The long-term changes in rainfall are examined by Man Kendall and Sen’s slope estimates and also analysed the nature relationship with Southern Oscillation Index (SOI) and North Atlantic Ocean (NAO) index. In monthly trends the rainfall over West MP has shown a significant decrease during June while a significant increase during August, whereas the seasonal and annual trends of rainfall are not significant in West MP. In East MP, annual as well as seasonal rainfall during monsoon season have shown significantly decreasing trend which is most prominent in June and July months. Monsoon rainfall is showing significant decreasing trend at 0.1 level of significance along with significant decrease in June month at 0.05 level over the MP state as a whole. The winter and pre-monsoon rainfall showed almost constant (non-significant) trends for the East as well as West MP and for MP state as a whole; however the post monsoon rainfall showed a significantly decreasing trend over West MP at 0.1 level and over all MP state as a whole at 0.05 level of significance during past 50 years. The state receives major rainfall during monsoon season only and rests of the season contribute only 10% to its annual average rainfall. The decreasing tendency in monsoon rainfall and hence annual rainfall, the urban and semi urban areas of the state are facing problems of water scarcity. The changing rainfall trends during monsoon season are affecting kharif crops productivity. The significantly decreasing monsoon and post monsoon rainfall pattern are causing more dependency of farmers on ground water resources.