共查询到20条相似文献，搜索用时 31 毫秒
1.
The runoff in Songhuajiang River catchment has experienced a decreasing trend during the second half of the 20th century. Serially complete daily rainfall data of 42 rainfall stations from 1959 to 2002 and daily runoff data of five meteorological stations from 1953 to 2005 were obtained. The Mann–Kendall trend test and the sequential version of Mann–Kendall test were employed in this study to test the monthly and annual trends for both rainfall and runoff, to determine the start point of abrupt runoff declining, and to identify the main driving factors of runoff decline. The results showed an insignificant increasing trend in rainfall but a significant decreasing trend in runoff in the catchment. For the five meteorological stations, abrupt runoff decline occurred during 1957–1963 and the middle 1990s. Through Mann–Kendall comparisons for the area‐rainfall and runoff for the two decreasing periods, human activity, rather than climatic change, is identified as the main driving factor of runoff decline. Analysis of land use/cover shows that farmland is most related with runoff decline among all the land use/cover change in Nenjiang catchment. From 1986 to 1995, the area of farmland increased rapidly from 6.99 to 7.61 million hm2. Hydraulic engineering has a significant influence on the runoff decline in the second Songhuajiang catchment. Many large‐scale reservoirs and hydropower stations have been built in the upstream of the Second Songhuajiang and lead to the runoff decline. Nenjiang and the Second Songhuajiang are the two sources of mainstream of Songhuajiang. Decreased runoff in these two sub‐catchments then results in runoff decrease in mainstream of Songhuajiang catchment. It is, therefore, concluded that high percent agricultural land and hydraulic engineering are the most probable driving factors of runoff decline in Songhuajiang River catchment, China. 相似文献
2.
Rainfall is the key climate variable that governs the spatial and temporal availability of water. In this study we identified monthly rainfall trends and their relation to the southern oscillation index (SOI) at ten rainfall stations across Australia covering all state capital cities. The nonparametric Mann–Kendall (MK) test was used for identifying significant trends. The trend free pre‐whitening approach (TFPW) was used to remove the effects of serial correlation in the dataset. The trend beginning year was approximated using the cumulative summation (CUSUM) technique and the influence of the SOI was identified using graphical representations of the wavelet power spectrum (WPS). Decreasing trends of rainfall depth were observed at two stations, namely Perth airport for June and July rainfall starting in the 1970s and Sydney Observatory Hill for July rainfall starting in the 1930s. No significant trends were found in the Melbourne, Alice Springs and Townsville rainfall data. The remaining five stations showed increasing trends of monthly rainfall depth. The SOI was found to explain the increasing trends for the Adelaide (June) and Cairns (April) rainfall data and the decreasing trends for Sydney (July) rainfall. Other possible climatic factors affecting Australian rainfall are also discussed. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. 相似文献
3.
Abstract The study of precipitation trends is critically important for a country like India whose food security and economy are dependent on the timely availability of water. In this work, monthly, seasonal and annual trends of rainfall have been studied using monthly data series of 135 years (1871–2005) for 30 sub-divisions (sub-regions) in India. Half of the sub-divisions showed an increasing trend in annual rainfall, but for only three (Haryana, Punjab and Coastal Karnataka), this trend was statistically significant. Similarly, only one sub-division (Chattisgarh) indicated a significant decreasing trend out of the 15 sub-divisions showing decreasing trend in annual rainfall. In India, the monsoon months of June to September account for more than 80% of the annual rainfall. During June and July, the number of sub-divisions showing increasing rainfall is almost equal to those showing decreasing rainfall. In August, the number of sub-divisions showing an increasing trend exceeds those showing a decreasing trend, whereas in September, the situation is the opposite. The majority of sub-divisions showed very little change in rainfall in non-monsoon months. The five main regions of India showed no significant trend in annual, seasonal and monthly rainfall in most of the months. For the whole of India, no significant trend was detected for annual, seasonal, or monthly rainfall. Annual and monsoon rainfall decreased, while pre-monsoon, post-monsoon and winter rainfall increased at the national scale. Rainfall in June, July and September decreased, whereas in August it increased, at the national scale. Citation Kumar, V., Jain, S. K. & Singh, Y. (2010) Analysis of long-term rainfall trends in India. Hydrol. Sci. J. 55(4), 484–496. 相似文献
4.
The trends in annual maximum rainfall (AMR) intensity data in New South Wales, Australia, were examined. Data from 60 stations were used covering three study periods, 1955–2010, 1965–2010 and 1978–2010. Mann-Kendall (MK) and Spearman’s rho (SR) tests were applied to assess trends at local stations. Pre-whitening (PW), trend-free pre-whitening (TFPW) and the variance correction (VC) tests were used to assess the effects of serial correlation on trend results. For regional trend analysis, the regional MK test was employed. The impacts of climatic variability modes on the observed trends in AMR intensity and seasonal maximum rainfall data were investigated. It was found that positive trends were more frequent than the negative ones. The PW, TFPW and VC tests resulted in a slight reduction in the count of stations exhibiting significant positive trends. The number of stations exhibiting significant trends decreased when the impact of climate variability modes was considered. 相似文献
5.
6.
长江流域降水变化及其趋势演变 总被引：1，自引：0，他引：1
本文对中国长江流域降水趋势进行了分析.指出对月降水量而言,20世纪后50年不同区域出现1不胃的降水趋势变化特征.趋势插补法研究表明中国降水时空分布趋势十分明显.对长江流域长期降水资料分析研究指出夏季月份降水时间更集中,而对年降水而言在一些站则表现出明显的周期变化. 相似文献
7.
Spatial distribution of rainfall trends in Sicily (1921-2000) 总被引：7，自引：0，他引：7
The feared global climate change could have important effects on various environmental variables including rainfall in many countries around the world. Changes in precipitation regime directly affect water resources management, agriculture, hydrology and ecosystems. For this reason it is important to investigate the changes in the spatial and temporal rainfall pattern in order to improve water management strategies.In this study a non-parametric statistical method (Mann-Kendall rank correlation method) is employed in order to verify the existence of trend in annual, seasonal and monthly rainfall and the distribution of the rainfall during the year. This test is applied to about 250 rain gauge stations in Sicily (Italy) after a series of procedures finalized to the estimation of missing records and to the verification of data consistency.In order to understand the regional pattern of precipitation in Sicily, the detected trends are spatially interpolated using spatial analysis techniques in a GIS environment.The results show the existence of a generalized negative trend for the entire region. 相似文献
8.
Huai River Basin, as the sixth largest river basin in China, has a high‐regulated river system and has been facing severe water problems. In this article, the changing patterns of runoff and precipitation at 10 hydrological stations from 1956 to 2000 on the highly regulated river (Shaying River) and less‐regulated river (Huai River) in the basin are evaluated at the monthly, seasonal and annual scales using the Mann–Kendall test and simple linear regression model. The results showed that: (1) No statistically significant trends of precipitation in the upper and middle Huai River Basins were detected at the annual scale, but the trend of annual runoff at Baiguishan, Zhoukou and Fuyang stations in Shaying River decreased significantly, whereas the others were not. Moreover, the decreasing trends of runoff for most months were significant in Shaying River, although the trend of monthly precipitation decreased significantly only in April in the whole research area and the number of months in the dry season having significantly decreasing trends in runoff was more than that in the wet season. (2) The rainfall–runoff relationship was significant in both highly regulated river and less‐regulated river. In regulated river, the reservoirs have larger regulation capacity than the floodgates and thus have the smaller correlation coefficient and t‐value. In Huai River, the correlation coefficients decreased from upper stream to downstream. (3) The regulation of dams and floodgates for flood control and water supply was the principal reason for the decreasing runoff in Huai River Basin, although the decreasing precipitation in April in this basin was statistically significant. The findings are useful for recognizing hydrology variation and will provide scientific foundation to integrated water resources management in Huai River Basin. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. 相似文献
9.
ABSTRACT This study assesses the climate change impact on rainfall and drought incidents across Nigeria. Linear regression, Mann-Kendall tests and lag-1 serial correlation were adopted to analyse the trends and variability of rainfall and drought at 18 synoptic stations. Analysis of annual precipitation series indicates an increase in rainfall amounts at all stations, except Minna, Gusau and Yola. Seventeen of the 18 stations recorded at least one main drought period, between 1983 and 1987. A decreasing trend for the standardized precipitation index SPI-12 series was seen at Yola station, while the other stations showed an increasing trend. Also, Nigeria witnessed more annual rainfall totals but with high variability within the rainy months of the year in the first 15 years of the 21st century compared to the 20th century. Such variability in rainfall may have a significant effect on groundwater resources and the hydrology of Nigeria. 相似文献
10.
Weiguang Wang Quanxi Shao Shizhang Peng Zengxin Zhang Wanqiu Xing Guiyang An Bin Yong 《Stochastic Environmental Research and Risk Assessment (SERRA)》2011,25(7):881-895
The present study explores the spatial and temporal changing patterns of the precipitation in the Haihe River basin of North
China during 1957–2007 at annual, seasonal and monthly scales. The Mann–Kendall and Sen’s T tests are employed to detect the trends, and the segmented regression is applied to investigate possible change points. Meanwhile,
Sen’s slope estimator is computed to represent the magnitudes of the temporal trends. The regional precipitation trends are
also discussed based on the regional index series of four sub-basins in the basin. Serial correlation of the precipitation
series is checked prior to the application of the statistical test to ensure the validity of trend detection. Moreover, moisture
flux variations based on the NCEP/NCAR reanalysis dataset are investigated to further reveal the possible causes behind the
changes in precipitation. The results show that: (1) Although the directions of annual precipitation trends at all stations
are downward, only seven stations have significant trends at the 90% confidence level, and these stations are mainly located
in the western and southeastern Haihe River basin. (2) Summer is the only season showing a strong downward trend. For the
monthly series, significant decreasing trends are mainly found during July, August and November, while significant increasing
trends are mostly observed during May and December. In comparison with the annual series, more intensive changes can be found
in the monthly series, which may indicate a shift in the precipitation regime. (3) Most shifts from increasing trends to decreasing
trends occurred in May–June, July, August and December series, while opposed shifts mainly occurred in November. Summer is
the only season displaying strong shift trends and the change points mostly emerged during the late 1970s to early 1980s.
(4) An obvious decrease in moisture flux is observed after 1980 in comparison with the observations before 1980. The results
of similar changing patterns between monthly moisture budget and precipitation confirmed that large-scale atmospheric circulation
may be responsible for the shift in the annual cycle of precipitation in the Haihe River basin. These findings are expected
to contribute to providing more accurate results of regional changing precipitation patterns and understanding the underlying
linkages between climate change and alterations of hydrological cycles in the Haihe River basin. 相似文献
11.
Jin Huang Jinchi Zhang Zengxin Zhang Chong-Yu Xu 《Stochastic Environmental Research and Risk Assessment (SERRA)》2013,27(2):337-351
Water resources and soil erosion are the most important environmental concerns in the Yangtze River basin, where soil erosion and sediment yield are closely related to rainfall erosivity. The present study explores the spatial and temporal changing patterns of the rainfall erosivity in the Yangtze River basin of China during 1960–2005 at annual, seasonal and monthly scales. The Mann–Kendall test is employed to detect the trends during 1960–2005, and the T test is applied to investigate possible changes between 1991–2005 and 1960–1990. Meanwhile the Rescaled Range Analysis is used for exploring future trend of rainfall erosivity. Moreover the continuous wavelet transform technique is using studying the periodicity of the rainfall erosivity. The results show that: (1) The Yangtze River basin is an area characterized by uneven spatial distribution of rainfall erosivity in China, with the annual average rainfall erosivity range from 131.21 to 16842 MJ mm ha?1 h?1. (2) Although the directions of trends in annual rainfall erosivity at most stations are upward, only 22 stations have significant trends at the 90 % confidence level, and these stations are mainly located in the Jinshajiang River basin and Boyang Lake basin. Winter and summer are the seasons showing strong upward trends. For the monthly series, significant increasing trends are mainly found during January, June and July. (3) Generally speaking, the results detected by the T test are quite consistent with those detected by the Mann–Kendall test. (4) The rainfall erosivity of Yangtze River basin during winter and summer will maintain a detected significant increasing trend in the near future, which may bring greater risks to soil erosion. (5) The annual and seasonal erosivity of Yangtze River basin all have one significant periodicity of 2–4 years. 相似文献
12.
Cokriging for enhanced spatial interpolation of rainfall in two Australian catchments 总被引：1，自引：0，他引：1 
下载免费PDF全文
下载免费PDF全文 Rainfall data in continuous space provide an essential input for most hydrological and water resources planning studies. Spatial distribution of rainfall is usually estimated using ground‐based point rainfall data from sparsely positioned rain‐gauge stations in a rain‐gauge network. Kriging has become a widely used interpolation method to estimate the spatial distribution of climate variables including rainfall. The objective of this study is to evaluate three geostatistical (ordinary kriging [OK], ordinary cokriging [OCK], kriging with an external drift [KED]), and two deterministic (inverse distance weighting, radial basis function) interpolation methods for enhanced spatial interpolation of monthly rainfall in the Middle Yarra River catchment and the Ovens River catchment in Victoria, Australia. Historical rainfall records from existing rain‐gauge stations of the catchments during 1980–2012 period are used for the analysis. A digital elevation model of each catchment is used as the supplementary information in addition to rainfall for the OCK and kriging with an external drift methods. The prediction performance of the adopted interpolation methods is assessed through cross‐validation. Results indicate that the geostatistical methods outperform the deterministic methods for spatial interpolation of rainfall. Results also indicate that among the geostatistical methods, the OCK method is found to be the best interpolator for estimating spatial rainfall distribution in both the catchments with the lowest prediction error between the observed and estimated monthly rainfall. Thus, this study demonstrates that the use of elevation as an auxiliary variable in addition to rainfall data in the geostatistical framework can significantly enhance the estimation of rainfall over a catchment. 相似文献
13.
Analysis of spatial and temporal variations of reference evapotranspiration (ETo) is important in arid and semi‐arid regions where water resources are limited. The main aim of this study was to analyse the spatial distribution and the annual, seasonal and monthly trends of the Penman–Monteith ETo for 21 stations in the arid and semi‐arid regions of Iran. Three statistical tests the Mann‐Kendall, Sen's slope estimator and linear regression were used for the analysis. The analysis revealed that ETo increased from January to July and deceased from July to December at almost all stations. Additionally, higher annual ETo values were found in the southeast of the study region and lower values in the northwest of the region. Although the results showed both positive and negative trends in annual ETo series, ETo generally increased, significantly so in six (～30%) of the stations. Analysis of the impacts of meteorological variables on the temporal trends of ETo indicated that the increasing trend of ETo was most likely due to a significant increase in minimum air temperature, while decreasing trend of ETo was mainly caused by a significant decrease in wind speed. At the sites where increasing ETo trends were statistically significant, the rate of increase varied from (+)8·36 mm/year at Mashhad station to (+)31·68 mm/year at Iranshahr station. On average, an increasing trend of (+)4·42 mm/year was obtained for the whole study area during the last four decades. Seasonal and monthly ETo have also tended to increase at the majority of the stations. The greatest numbers of significant trends were observed in winter on the seasonal time‐scale and in September on the monthly time‐scale. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. 相似文献
14.
The jarrah forest of south-western Australia produces little streamflow from moderate rainfall. Water yield from water supply catchments for Perth, Western Australia, are low, averaging 71 mm (7% of annual rainfall). The low water yields are attributed to the large soil water storage available for continuous use by the forest vegetation. A number of water yield studies in south-western Australia have examined the impact on water yield of land use practices including clearing for agricultural development, forest harvesting and regeneration, forest thinning and bauxite mining. A permanent reduction in forest cover by clearing for agriculture led to permanent increases of water yield of approximately 28% of annual rainfall in a high rainfall catchment. Thinning of a high rainfall catchment led to an increase in water yield of 20% of annual rainfall. However, it is not clear for how long the increased water yield will persist. Forest harvesting and regeneration have led to water yield increases of 16% of annual rainfall. The subsequent recovery of vegetation cover has led to water yields returning to pre-disturbance levels after an estimated 12–15 years. Bauxite mining of a high rainfall catchment led to a water yield increase of 8% of annual rainfall, followed by a return to pre-disturbance water yield after 12 years. The magnitude of specific streamflow generation mechanisms in small catchments subject to forest disturbance vary considerably, typically in a number of distinct stages. The presence of a permanent groundwater discharge area was shown to be instrumental in determining the magnitude of the streamflow response after forest disturbance. The long-term prognosis for water yield from areas subject to forest thinning, harvesting and regeneration, and bauxite mining are uncertain, owing to the complex interrelationship between vegetation cover, tree height and age, and catchment evapotranspiration. Management of the forest for water yield needs to acknowledge this complexity and evaluate forest management strategies both at the large catchment scale and at long time-scales. The extensive network of small catchment experiments, regional studies, process studies and catchment modelling at both the small and large scale, which are carried out in the jarrah forest, are all considered as integral components of the research to develop these management strategies to optimise water yield from the jarrah forest, without forfeiting other forest values. 相似文献
15.
Despite the importance of mountain ranges as water providers, knowledge of their climate variability is still limited, mostly due to a combination of data scarcity and heterogeneous orography. The tropical Andes share many of the main features of mountain ranges in general, and are subject to several climatic influences that have an effect on rainfall variability. Although studies have addressed the large-scale variation, the basin scale has received little attention. Thus, the purpose of this study was to obtain a better understanding of rainfall variability in the tropical Andes at the basin scal, utilizing the Paute River basin of southern Ecuador as a case study. Analysis of 23 rainfall stations revealed a high spatial variability in terms of: (i) large variations of mean annual precipitation in the range 660–3400 mm; (ii) the presence of a non-monotonic relation between annual precipitation and elevation; and (iii) the existence of four, sometimes contrasting, rainfall regimes. Data from seven stations for the period 1964–1998 was used to study seasonality and trends in annual, seasonal and monthly precipitation. Seasonality is less pronounced at higher elevations, confirming that in the páramo region, the main water source for Andean basins, rainfall is well distributed year round. Additionally, during the period of record, no station has experienced extreme concentrations of annual rainfall during the wet season, which supports the concept of mountains as reliable water providers. Although no regional or basin-wide trends are found for annual precipitation, positive (negative) trends during the wet (dry) season found at four stations raises the likelihood of both water shortages and the risk of precipitation-triggered disasters. The study demonstrates how variable the precipitation patterns of the Andean mountain range are, and illustrates the need for improved monitoring. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. 相似文献
16.
Trends of the three hydro-meteorological variables precipitation, temperature and stream flow, represented by 13, 12, and 9 gauging stations, respectively, within the Abay/Upper Blue Nile basin have been studied to support water management in the region. The Trends were evaluated over different time periods depending on data availability at the stations. The statistical Mann–Kendall and Pettitt tests have been used to assess trends and change points respectively. The tests have been applied to mean annual, monthly, seasonal, 1- and 7-days annual minimum and maximum values for streamflow, while mean annual, monthly and seasonal timescales were applied to meteorological variables. The results are heterogeneous and depict statistically significant increasing/decreasing trends. Besides, it showed significant abrupt change of point upward/downward shift for streamflow and temperature time series. However, precipitation time series did not show any statistically significant trends in mean annual and seasonal scales across the examined stations.Increasing trends in temperature at different weather stations for the mean annual, rainy, dry and small rainy seasons are apparent. The mean temperature at Bahir Dar – typical station in the Lake Tana sub basin, has been increasing at the rate of about 0.5 °C/decade, 0.3 °C/decade in rainy season (June–September), 0.6 °C/decade in small rainy season (March–May), and 0.6 °C/decade in dry season (October–February). Other stations in the Abay/Upper Blue Nile show comparable results. Overall it is found that trends and change point times varied considerably across the stations and catchment to catchment. Identified significant trends can help to make better planning decisions for water management. However, the cause attributes to the observed changes in hydro-meteorological variables need further research. In particular the combined effects of land use/land cover change and climate variability on streamflow of Abay/Blue Nile basin and its tributaries needs to be understood better. 相似文献
17.
Global warming can potentially lead to changes in future rainfall and runoff and can significantly impact the regional hydrology and future availability of water resources. All the large‐scale climate impact studies use the future climate projections from global climate models (GCMs) to estimate the impact on future water availability. This paper presents results from a detailed assessment to investigate the capability of 15 GCMs to reproduce the observed historical annual and seasonal mean rainfalls, the observed annual rainfall series and the observed daily rainfall distribution across south‐east Australia. The assessment shows that the GCMs can generally reproduce the spatial patterns of mean seasonal and annual rainfalls. However, there can be considerable differences between the mean rainfalls simulated by the GCMs and the observed rainfall. The results clearly show that none of the GCMs can simulate the actual annual rainfall time series or the trend in the annual rainfall. The GCMs can also generally reproduce the observed daily (ranked) rainfall distribution at the GCM scale. The GCMs are ranked against their abilities to reproduce the observed historical mean annual rainfall and daily rainfall distribution, and, based on the combined score, the better GCMs include MPI‐ECHAM5, MIUB, CCCMA_T47, INMCM, CSIRO‐MK3·0, CNRM, CCCMA_T63 and GFDL 2·0 and those with poorer performances are MRI, IPSL, GISS‐AOM, MIROC‐M, NCAR‐PCM1, IAP and NCAR‐CCSM. However, the reduction in the combined score as we move from the best‐ to the worst‐performing GCMs is gradual, and there is no evident cut‐off point or threshold to remove GCMs from climate impact studies. There is some agreement between the results here and many similar studies comparing the performance of GCMs in Australia, but the results are not always consistent and do significantly disagree with several of the studies. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. 相似文献
18.
Understanding the variability in monthly rainfall amounts is important for the management of water resources. We use entropy, a measure of variability, to quantify the rainfall variability in Australia. We define the entropy of stable rainfall (ESR) to measure the long‐term average rainfall variability across the months of the year. The stations in northern Australia observe substantially more variability in rainfall distributions and stations in southern Australia observe less variability in rainfall distribution across the months of the year. We also define the consistency index (CI) to compare the distribution of the monthly rainfall for a given year with the long‐term average monthly rainfall distribution. Higher value of the CI indicates the rainfall in the year is consistent with the overall long‐term average rainfall distribution. Areas close to the coastline in northern, southern and eastern Australia observe more consistent rainfall distribution in individual years with the long‐term average rainfall distribution. For the studied stations, we categorize the years into different potential water resource availability on the basis of annual rainfall amount and CI. For almost all Australian rainfall stations, El Niño years have a greater risk of having below median and relatively inconsistent rainfall distribution than La Niña years. The results may be helpful for developing area‐specific water usage strategies. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. 相似文献
19.
L. Palleiro M. L. Rodríguez‐Blanco M. M. Taboada‐Castro M. T. Taboada‐Castro 《水文研究》2014,28(4):1677-1688
Using data collected at the Mero catchment during three hydrological years (2005/06–2007/08), an analysis of rainfall–runoff relationships was performed at annual, seasonal, monthly, and event scales. At annual scale, the catchment showed low runoff coefficients (23–35%), due to high water storage capacity soils as well as high runoff inter‐annual variability. Rainfall variability was the main responsible for the differences in the inter‐annual runoff. At seasonal and monthly scales, there was no simple relationship between rainfall and runoff. Seasonal dynamics of rainfall and potential evapotranspiration in conjunction with different rainfall distribution during the study years could be the key factors explaining the complex relationship between rainfall and runoff at monthly and seasonal scale. At the event scale, the results revealed that the hydrological response was highly dependent on initial conditions and, to a lesser extent, on rainfall amount. The shapes of the different hydrographs, regardless of the magnitude, presented similar characteristics: a moderate rise and a prolonged recession, suggesting that subsurface flow was the dominant process in direct runoff. Moreover, all rainfall–runoff events had a higher proportion of baseflow than of direct runoff. A cluster‐type analysis discriminated three types of events differentiated mainly by rainfall amount and antecedent rainfall conditions. The study highlights the role of the antecedent rainfall and the need for caution in extrapolating relationships between rainfall amount and hydrological response of the catchment. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. 相似文献
20.
Trend and extreme occurrence of precipitation in a mid‐latitude Eurasian steppe watershed at various time scales 下载免费PDF全文
下载免费PDF全文 Xixi Wang Xiaomin Yang Tingxi Liu Fengling Li Ruizhong Gao Limin Duan Yanyun Luo 《水文研究》2014,28(22):5547-5560
The confounding effects of step change invalidate the stationarity assumption of commonly used trend analysis methods such as the Mann–Kendall test technique, so previous studies have failed to explain inconsistencies between detected trends and observed large precipitation anomalies. The objectives of this study were to (1) formulate a trend analysis approach that considers nonstationarity due to step changes, (2) use this approach to detect trends and extreme occurrences of precipitation in a mid‐latitude Eurasian steppe watershed in North China, and (3) examine how runoff responds to precipitation trends in the study watershed. Our results indicate that annual precipitation underwent a marginal step jump around 1995. The significant annual downward trend after 1994 was primarily due to a decrease in summer rainfall; other seasons exhibited no significant precipitation trends. At a monthly scale, July rainfall after 1994 exhibited a significant downward trend, whereas precipitation in other months had no trend. The percentage of wet days also underwent a step jump around 1994 following a significant decreasing trend, although the precipitation intensity exhibited neither a step change nor any significant trend. However, both low‐frequency and high‐frequency precipitation events in the study watershed occurred more often after than before 1994; probably as either a result or an indicator of climate change. In response to these precipitation changes, the study watershed had distinctly different precipitation‐runoff relationships for observed annual precipitations of less than 300 mm, between 300 and 400 mm, and greater than 400 mm. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. 相似文献