Northwest Algeria has experienced fluctuations in rainfall between the two decades 1940s and 1990s from positive to negative anomalies, which reflected a significant decline in rainfall during the mid-1970s. Therefore, further analyzing rainfall in this region is required for improving the strategies on water resource management. In this study, we complement previous studies by dealing with sub basins that were not previously addressed in Tafna basin (our study area located in Northwest Algeria), and by including additional statistical methods (Kruskal–Wallis test, Jonckheere-Terpstra test, and the Friedman test) that were not earlier reported on the large scale (Northwest Algeria). In order to analyse the homogeneity, trends, and stationarity in rainfall time series for nine rainfall stations over the period 1979–2011, we have used several statistical tests. The results showed an increasing trend for annual rainfall after the break detected in 2007 for Djbel Chouachi, Ouled Mimoun, Sidi Benkhala stations using Hubert, Pettitt, and Buishand tests. The Lee and Heghinian test has detected a break at the same year in 2007 for all stations except Sebdou, Beni Bahdel, and Hennaya stations, which have a break date in 1980. We have confirmed this increasing trend for rainfall with other trend detection methods such as Mann Kendall and Sen’s method that highlighted an upward trend for all the stations in the autumn season, which is mainly due to an increase in rainfall in September and October. On a monthly scale, the date of rupture is different from one station to another because the time series are not homogeneous. In addition, we have applied three tests enabling further results: (i) the Jonckheere-Terpstra test has detected an upward trend for two stations (Khemis and Hennaya), (ii) Friedman test has indicated the difference between the mean rank again with Khemis and Hennaya stations and the Merbeh station, (iii) according to the Kruskal-Wallis test, there have been no variance detected between all the rainfall stations. The increasing trend in rainfall may lead to a rise in stream flow and enhance potential floods risks in low-lying regions of the study area.

The drought ranked first in terms the natural hazard characteristics and impacts followed by tropical cyclones, regional floods, earthquakes, and volcanoes. Drought monitoring is an important aspect of drought risk management and the assessment of drought is usually done through using various drought indices. The western region in Algeria is the most affected by the drought since the middle of the 70s.The current research focuses on the analysis and comparison of four meteorological drought indices (standardized precipitation index – SPI, percent of normal index – PN, decile index – DI, and rainfall anomaly index – RAI) in the Tafna basin for different time scales (annual, seasonal, and monthly) during 1979–2011. The results showed that the SPI and DI have similar frequencies for dry and wet categories. The RAI and PN were able to detect more drought categories. Meanwhile, all indices have strong positive correlations between each other, especially with Spearman correlation tests (0.99; 1.0), the meteorological drought indices almost showed consistent and similar results in the study area. It was determined in 1982 as the driest year and 2008 as the wettest year in the period of the study. The analysis of the trend was based on the test of Mann– Kendall (MK), a positive trend of the indices were detected on a monthly scale, this increasing of indices trend represent the increasing of the wet categories which explains the increasing trend of the rainfall in the last 2000s. These results overview of the understanding of drought trends in the region is crucial for making strategies and assist in decision making for water resources management and reducing vulnerability to drought.