The Impact of El Niño and La Niña Phenomenon on Rainfall, Temperature and Stream Flow to Water Management Approach for Sustainable Agriculture

Abstract

The objectives of this research were to study variation and comparative analysis of rainfall, temperature and stream flow under El Nino and La Nina phenomena. The methodologies were conducted by a retrospective study. The source of rainfall and temperature were belong to Thai meteorological department while stream flow measurement was belong to royal irrigation department and department of water resources during 1951 to 2009 at difference typical watershed as Mae Taeng, Choen and Khlong Yan. All data were to study variation by trend analysis and comparative analysis between El Niño and normal years, La Niña and normal year among three conditions as annually, wet period and dry period by independent samples t-test with statistical significance at the 0.05 level. The results of variation analysis showed that the annually average of rainfall at Mae Taeng, Choen, and Khlong Yan watersheds were 1,100.70, 1,320.84 and 1,960.84 millimeters. The annual average of temperature at Mae Taeng, Choen and Khlong Yan watersheds were 25.30, 26.81 and 26.92 degree Celsius. The yearly average of stream flow at Mae Taeng, Choen and Khlong Yan watersheds were 493.05, 1,621 and 11,106.50 million cubic meters. The results of com parative analysis showed that not significantly different during El Nino and La Nina phenomena in all comparison except rainfall in during a wet period of comparison between La Niña year and normal year in Khlong Yan watersheds had a significance difference level of 0.05 (p-value = 0.031).