As part of the ACEWATER-III project, the team at the University of Botswana, led by Prof Piet Kenabatho, recently published an article titled Innovative trend analysis of long-term spatial-temporal rainfall patterns over Botswana: Implications for water resources management

The study explores the utility of newer trend analysis methods, such as the innovative trend analysis method (ITA), to identify trends in seasonal and annual rainfall data using long-term rainfall data in Botswana.

The results were compared with those from traditional methods (TMs), such as the Mann-Kendall (MK) test and Sen’s slope (SS) methods. The utility of the ITA method has not been explored in Botswana and Southern Africa. Furthermore, rainfall variability is evaluated using the precipitation concentration index (PCI) method.

New hydrological insights for the region

The results reveal that most rainfall data show trends when using the ITA method than the TMs for both seasonal rainfall (December-February, DJF), (March-May, MAM), (September-November, SON) and annual rainfall data. Significant trends were detected as follows: The ITA (TMs) returned 81.3 (0) % for annual rainfall, 43.8 (0) % for DJF, 75.0 (12.5) % for MAM, and 75.1 (0) % for SON rainfall, respectively, indicating the superiority of ITA over the TM methods, which is consistent with the literature

To read more, click here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214581825000412#fig0005