Trend Analysis of Seasonal Drought in Northern Karnataka, India

Trend analysis of climatic data is often carried out in water resources management studies to understand its distribution over a given region. This paper presents an analysis of trends in meteorological drought in 12 districts in the northern part of Karnataka state, India over the period 1991–2020. Trends in the 3-month timescale standardized precipitation index (SPI-3) were analyzed using the Mann-Kendall (MK) trend test and Sen’s slope estimator for the Kharif season. The results of analysis showed an increasing trend of droughts in four districts however, the trend in most of the districts was not statistically significant. The findings were validated with the trend of the declared area under drought (AUD) by the state government for the study area. The findings of this work might be useful for a better understanding of regional drought trends and also for establishing effective water resources management policies.