Increasing and decreasing trends in extreme annual streamflow in the Godavari catchment, India

In this study, we present the changing trends in extreme annual streamflow at 38 gauging stations in the Godavari catchment, India, during the period 1966–2015. We have applied Mann–Kendall trend test to the time series of at least 20 years of continuous data. The results indicate an increasing trend in the peak streamflow in the northern stations located within the Wainganga, Wardha and Indravati sub-catchments. We observed a critical declining trend at the upstream, central and downstream of the Godavari main catchment. Increasing trends in annual peak streamflow may cause severe higher magnitude floods in the Goda­vari catchment in the near future that may affect the lives of millions of population.