Detecting Variability and Trends in Daily Rainfall Characteristics in Amman-Zarqa Basin, Jordan
Zain Al-Houri

Abstract
Rainfall has a great spatial and temporal variability. This variability has been manifested in many regions by climate change phenomenon. In this paper, variability and trends in daily rainfall in Amman-Zarqa Basin in Jordan have been detected. A number of parameters have been tested namely; number of rainy days, duration of the wet season, maximum and average daily rainfall. The rainfall data sets consist of 15 rain gauge stations located in the basin. Trends detection is carried out using time series plots, and Mann-Kendall test. The analyses showed trend towards decreased duration of the wet season associated with decreased number of rainy days for most of the stations. Furthermore, there is an increasing trend in the maximum and average daily rainfall for most of the stations. However, results of Mann-Kendall test revealed that none of the parameters under study showed statistically significant trends.

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