ABSTRACT
Using 58 years (1961 to 2018) of daily rainfall data, this study focuses on determining trends in the annual and seasonal precipitation extremes of Jiangxi, China, by choosing four extreme precipitation indices, including strong precipitation amount (SPA), mean precipitation intensity (MPI), strong precipitation days (SPD), and strong precipitation frequency (SPF). The monotonic trends are tested by using the Mann-Kendall test for the trends and Sen’s method for the magnitude of the trends. The effective sample size (ESS) method was used to eliminate the influence of serial correlation in the Mann-Kendall test. The results indicated that station Zixi had the strongest extreme precipitation, while Wanzai had the weakest. The trends for each index showed an obvious regional feature over Jiangxi. Increasing trends in annual extreme precipitation indices were found at almost all stations, and the annual variability of the extreme precipitation indices was pronounced, especially for the mean precipitation intensity and the strong precipitation frequency; the majority of these positive trends were shown by the statistical tests. In spring, four indices exhibited significant increasing trends in Northeast and Southwest Jiangxi; however, in summer, only MPI had a remarkable positive trend across almost all of Jiangxi. For the other indices, few stations had remarkable trends. In autumn, MPI and SPF showed remarkable increasing trends in most regions of Jiangxi, while SPA and SPD showed increasing trends at only 6 stations and 3 stations, respectively, which were scattered in the northern and middle parts. In winter, the stations with remarkable upward trends in SPA and SPD were mainly located in the middle of the region, whereas the significant patterns of MPI and SPF were located in the south and middle of the region.