Changes in precipitation rates over the last 70 years in Eastern Paraná State, Brazil
Temporal hydrometeorological series may present variations over time. The awareness of these characteristics is important to improve the monitoring of changes that these series may suffer along time. In this regard, the present paper aims to identify the existence of precipitation trends for the east portion of Paraná state, in Brazil, and also investigate the changes in the observed rates over the last 70 years. The statistical tests of Mann-Kendall and Pettitt, and also the Theil-Sen estimator, are applied for series of precipitation from 13 pluviometric stations of eastern Paraná state, Brazil, with 70 years of data records. By the results it was identified long-term linear positive trend for 11 of the precipitation series and also detected medium-term patterns in precipitation over 10 stations, characterizing the Joseph effect. These series have presented a behavior with higher rates in the most recent years in comparison from the first years of the historical data, sectioning the complete series into two shorter stationary periods, and presenting an abrupt change point.