Twelfth International Conference on The Constructed Environment

Abstract

Changes in rainfall and temperature have already affected food crop production and the future change threatens to exacerbate food insecurity. Thus, the study aimed at forecasting of rainfall and temperature. The daily rainfall and temperature data of 37 years from 7 stations (1981-2017) were collected from National Meteorological Agency of Ethiopia. ARIMA, quadratic trend, linear trend and simple exponential smoothing models were used to forecast rainfall and temperature. Accuracy of the model has been determined based on an Akaike information criterion (AIC). Sen’s slope estimator was used to determine the magnitude of change, while the Mann-Kendall (MK) test was utilized to examine the trend of forecasted rainfall and temperature. The predicted results for winter and spring rainfall indicated a significant decreasing and increasing tendency respectively. Summer and autumn rainfall exhibited an insignificant upward and downward trend respectively, but yearly rainfall showed a substantial declining trend. The projected winter, spring, autumn, and yearly minimum temperatures all indicate a considerable upward tendency, whereas the summer minimum temperature shows a negligible upward trend. The forecasted maximum temperature in the winter and spring shows a significant rising tendency, while in the summer, autumn, and annual shows a substantial dropping trend. As the livelihoods of the farmers mainly depend on seasonal rain-fed agriculture, adapting to the adverse impact of rainfall and temperature variability is undisputable. Decisions regarding the agricultural system and formulation of adaptation strategies in the area are better to consider increasing in minimum temperature and declining in annual rainfall.