Investigating Temporal Trends and Spatial Characteristics of Rainfall and Meteorological Drought in the West of Iran during the Last Few Decades

Drought is one of the most serious problems arising for human societies and ecosystems from climatevariability. This phenomenon causes billions of dollars in global damages annually and affects morepeople than any other form of natural disasters.In this study, the trends of rainfall and meteorological drought time series were investigated at tenstations located in the east of Iran for the period of 1966–2005. Amounts of drought severity werecomputed using standard precipitation index (SPI) for a 12-month time scale. The trend analyses of thedata were also performed using the Mann–Kendall test and the Sen’s slope estimator. The results ofthis study showed that the rainfall and drought data had high variations to average values in the studyperiod, and these variations increased with increasing aridity towards the east of the study area. Theresults of the trend tests revealed statistically significant decreasing trends in the rainfall time series ofSar-Pol-Zohab, Bijar, Sanandaj and Saghez stations at the rates of 7.99, 6.68, 5.51 and 5.03 mm/year,respectively. Furthermore, drought severity significantly increased at Kermanshah, Saghez, Sanandajand Khorram-Abad stations during the last four decades. The results indicated that all of the stationsexperienced at least one extreme drought during the study period.