Flood changes during the past 50 years in Wujiang River,South China

Changing trends of peak flood and flood duration in the Wujiang River Basin are detected with the help of the Mann–Kendall test and the Pettitt analysis during the past 50 years. Results indicate that the peak flood and the flood duration at Lishi Station have different changing features. The peak flood showed only marginally increasing trend, whereas the flood duration exhibited decreasing trend at the significance level of 90%. The result shows a weak positive correlation between the peak flood and the flood duration. The changes of flood duration are influenced by the total rainfall duration, which is in downward trend at significance level 90%. In addition, the changing trends of peak flood are similar to the total rainfall amount. In the change‐point analysis, it was found that the change points for the peak flood and flood duration series were in the years 1993 and 1966, respectively. Human activities such as the construction of reservoirs were the main driving forces causing the change of flood duration. The periodicity of the peak flood during the period 1955–2007 at Lishi Station is detected by using the wavelet analysis. The result indicates that the peak flood at Lishi Station displayed alternation between big floods and small floods on the 25‐ to 26‐year period. At the same timescale, the peak flood of Wujiang River showed an evidence of change between big floods and small floods. It was essential to be prepared and aware of the consequences of climate changes and human influences affecting the water resources in the Wujiang River Basin. This result is expected to draw more attention from the local governments in its decision making and water resource management. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.