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The state of Paraíba, located in the northeastern region of Brazil, comprises 223 municipalities and covers an area of 56,469 km 2 . Paraíba is divided into four major mesoregions: Zona da Mata, Agreste, Borborema and Sertão Paraibano. For this study, the Sertão Paraibano mesoregion, a semiarid area, was chosen to understand vulnerability to climate change, taking into account the region's economic importance for water and energy supply. The Mann-Kendall non-parametric test was applied to evaluate trends in the historical series of monthly, trimestrial, biannual and annual precipitation data. The series utilized corresponded to the period 1912-2012 and were built from data generated by five meteorological stations distributed throughout the mesoregion. These stations are maintained by the Executive Agency for Water Management (AESA) and National Department of Works Against Drought (DNOCS). The results indicated increasing precipitation trends for the Sertão Paraibano mesoregion, especially in the annual evaluation, for the first semester of the year (January to June), for the trimester December-January-February and the month of January, with slopes between 2.67 mm/year and 5.45 mm/year. The results evidenced the need to deepen studies on the influence of climate change in the area, to promote prompt adaptation measures.

This work proposes a novel method for the application of cluster analysis to climatology. The new method groups similar years regarding total values of precipitation and distribution throughout the year. The most recent and oldest years are then compared to examine changes in the distribution pattern. The Ward’s method was used to compose hierarchical clusters. Trend analysis encompassed the Mann-Kendall and Sen's slope tests to complement and compare the results. This test characterizing a simple random series. As a form of exemplification, the proposed method was applied to historical data from seven weather stations located in northeastern Brazil. Significant trends of both increase and reduction in precipitation were observed, depending on the station studied. Even for statistically non-significant trends, the new cluster analysis enabled the verification of more subtle changes in precipitation. This new approach to cluster analysis can provide a broader view on how changes in precipitation patterns are occurring.

Regiões áridas-Brasil. I. Zuffo, Alan Mario. II. Série. CDD 333.7369 Elaborado por Maurício Amormino Júnior-CRB6/2422 O conteúdo dos artigos e seus dados em sua forma, correção e confiabilidade são de responsabilidade exclusiva dos autores. 2019 Permitido o download da obra e o compartilhamento desde que sejam atribuídos créditos aos autores, mas sem a possibilidade de alterá-la de nenhuma forma ou utilizá-la para fins comerciais. www.atenaeditora.com.br APRESENTAÇÃO A obra "As Regiões Semiáridas e suas Especificidades" aborda uma série de livros de publicação da Atena Editora, em seu I volume, apresenta, em seus 24 capítulos, com conhecimentos tecnológicos das regiões semiáridas e suas especificidades. As Ciências estão globalizadas, englobam, atualmente, diversos campos em termos de pesquisas tecnológicas. O semiárido brasileiro tem característica peculiares, alimentares, culturais, edafoclimáticas, étnicos, entre outros. Tais, diversidades culminam no avanço tecnológico, nas áreas de Agronomia, Engenharia Florestal,