Exploring Trends in Climatological Time Series of Orissa, India Using Nonparametric Trend Tests - Hydrologic Time Series Analysis: Theory and Practice - page 222

Fig. 11.1. The geographical location of the study area. Four predominant
physiographic zones include the coastal zone (Balasore, Cuttack, Puri, Ganjam),
the eastern ghat zone (Koraput, Phulbani, Kalahandi), the central table land
(Bolangir, Dhenkanal, Sambalpur), and the northern plateau (Keonjhar,
Mayurbhanj, Sundargarh).
the coastal setting of Orissa. Also, Panda et al. (2007) found a significant
declining trend of groundwater levels in Orissa, which is due to the systematic
forcing mechanism of drought in conjunction with human stress and high
temperatures.
The Bay of Bengal plays an important role in the global climate system:
it is one of the intense heat source regions in the global tropics (Ding, 1994;
Chu and Wang, 1997), and also possesses the largest global maximum of
summer monsoon rainfall (Hoyos and Webster, 2007). Further, the northwest
Bay of Bengal and the adjoining landmass is the region of higher aerosol
optical depth (e.g., Menon et al., 2002; Chylek et al., 2006; Prasad et al.,
2006). It is, therefore, of scientific interest to study the long-term response of
hydroclimatic variables of Orissa due to its geographical location at the head
of the Bay of Bengal. The aim of this chapter is to identify and quantify the
trends of the hydroclimatic variables such as annual rainfall, monthly minimum
and maximum air temperatures, and monthly average relative humidity of the
eastern Indian state of Orissa, using the nonparametric statistical tests.