| Abstract: | An investigation was carried out to identify trends in the rainfall and temperature regimes of the Ganga basin in India and in India as a whole. Long-term data on the monsoon and annual rainfall and the average annual temperature for India as a whole, and on the monsoon rainfall, number of rainy days and annual maximum temperature of the Ganga basin were analysed. The trends in these data were detected using non-parametric methods. The results of this study showed that the rainfall variables had a decreasing trend and the temperature had an increasing trend. These trends were observed to have begun around the second half of the 1960s, and have implications for the Indian economy. As the Indian economy continues to be based on agriculture, water resource management for irrigation plays a vital part in its growth. Present methods of design and management for water resource systems assume the climatic regime to be stationary. If indeed the climatic regime has changed, it will be necessary to develop new management approaches which consider this change. |
