Rainfall forecasting of Jehlum River Basin in Kashmir Himalaya using Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average Model

Jehlum River is the main river of Kashmir valley, which extensively drains most parts of the valley and has immense socio-economic significance. The basin's location in the mountainous region makes it more vulnerable to climate change. The rainfall data spans 44 years, ranging from 1980 to 2023, from four metrological stations Kokernag, Pahalgam, Srinagar and Kupwara across the basin. Rainfall data across the basin is spatially interpolated using Inverse Distance Weighting (IDW), Radial basis functions, and Global polynomial interpolation methods. Forecasting of monthly, seasonal, and annual rainfall for twenty-five years from 2024 to 2048 is performed using the ARIMA model based on individual fitted orders for all seasonal, monthly, and annual rainfall sets. \(stationary\) \({r}^{2}\) and BIC (Bayesian Information Criterion) are parameters for fitting the model to the series. From 2024 to 2048, Kokernag and Srinagar stations show decreasing winter and spring rainfall, while all stations indicate an overall increasing trend in annual and other seasonal rainfall, with notable peaks in July 2048 at Srinagar (304 mm) and Pahalgam (525.9 mm). Authors believe that study will help in the provision of useful information concerning the management of water resources especially under the prevailing climate circumstances and the more prone geographical location of the study area.