for evaluating the impacts of climate variable on local community, ecosystems and biodiversity. Keywords: Climate extremes, Dry zone, Precipitation, Temperature, Myanmar I. INTRODUCTION Extreme weather and climate events have a negative impact on ecosystems, economies, and communities in a variety of ways 1. Due to increasing trends of several climate extreme events such as cyclones, intense r a infall , floods, droughts, and landslides, the agricultural production, water resources and environment are under threat 2. Many parts of the world have been experienced climate extremes during the last century 3. In recent years developing countries including Myanmar are more vulnerable than developed countries in terms of climate risk index due to exceptional catastrophes and low-income. According to the Global Climate Risk Index (2016), Myanmar is the second highest vulnerability country in terms of climate extreme events and socio-economic losses during the past 20 years 4. Several researches have been conducted in understanding of the trends in climate extremes on global and regional scale (e.g., 5-10). However, long term climate data for the Southeast Asia and Asia-Pacific region is limited, especially at the country level 11. Manton et al. 8 selected 6 synoptic stations in Myanmar and reported the overall warming trend in the region with increased in hot days and warm nights as well as a decrease in cold days and cold nights. In addition, the frequency of precipitation has declined but with statistical insignificance. The aim of this study is to evaluate trends and extreme indices over 41 years of daily temperature and precipitation in a dry zone region in Myanmar, in order to improve our understanding of the long term variations and extreme changes in this area. The results would benefit both future evaluation of the impacts of climate change as well as for identifying appropriate measures for adaptation. II. MATERIAL AND METHODS A. Study Area Dry zone is located in central part of Myanmar in Magway, Mandalay, and lower Sagaing regions. The area covers about 10 percent of country with a population of about 12 million. Livelihoods in this area mainly depend on the south-west monsoon. Average annual rainfall in dry zone is the lowest (500- 1,000 mm/year) and the variation of seasonal temperature is highest ranging from a minimum of 10-15°C to a maximum of 40-43°C within the country. Thus, this region is characterized by low rainfall, intense heat, degraded soil conditions, and lack of significant surface water availability which affect the ecosystem services of the local communities 13. Moreover severe drought has been experienced in 2005 and drought has become more frequent in this region 13. Considering the data availability, this study focused on five major cities of central dry zone, namely, Mandalay, Minbu, Meikthila, Monywa, and Pyinmana, as shown in Fig.1. B. Data Collection Long term time series data of daily maximum temperature ( °C) , minimum temperature (°C), and daily precipitation (mm) of five stations were collected from the Department of Meteorology and Hydrology (DMH), Nay Pyi Taw, Myanmar for the period of 1975 to 2015. The location details of these five stations are shown in Table 1. Minbu Station had a data gap between 1975 to 1980. Proceedings of the International Conference on Climate Change, Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services for the 293 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): Policy and Practice 27-29 June 2016, Cha-am, Phetchaburi, Thailand
Proceedings of International Conference on Climate Change, Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services for the Sustainable Development Goals : Policy and Practice 27-29 June 2016 at the Sirindhorn International Environmental Park, Cha-am, Phetchaburi, Thailand
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