ORIGINAL PAPER Trend analysis and historical and recent return periods of erosivity indicators in the state of Sinaloa, Mexico Omar Llanes-Cárdenas 1 & Mariano Norzagaray-Campos 1 & Ernestina Pérez-González 1 & Alberto Gaxiola 2 & Jesús Saúl López-Rocha 1 & Gabriel Eduardo González-González 1 Received: 30 July 2019 /Accepted: 22 January 2020 # Saudi Society for Geosciences 2020 Abstract There are many agricultural regions in the world that have historically and recently documented irregular precipitation during the twentieth century; the effects of these variations in moisture are observed in different soil types. The goal of this study was to analyze the trend and return periods (RP), historical and recent, of soil erosivity indicators in Sinaloa. Daily precipitation data were obtained for the periods identified as recent and historical, i.e., 1963–2000 and 1982–2014, respectively. Subsequently, the average annual accumulated precipitation (AAAP), the trends of average precipitation concentration index (APCI), average modified Fournier index (AMFI), and average total erosivity index (ATEI) were calculated. With Gumbel method, the return periods were calculated. The historical and recent average of APCI and ATEI showed a highly seasonal distribution with medium to high erosivity, which accelerates the process of soil degradation. The negative trends in AAAP, APCI, AMFI, and ATEI can be attributed to the occurrence of -PDO, -ONI, and -TSM Pacific Ocean phase anomalies, which generate La Niña events. The RP for the historical period indicated greater erosivities after 2025. The RP for the recent period show that APCI and ATEI will intensify from 2019 on, and AAAP and AMFI will intensify from 2039. This is an unprecedented study that provides knowledge that can contribute to maintaining Sinaloa as the leading agricultural state in Mexico. Keywords Agricultural regions . Trend . Return periods . Erosivity . Sinaloa . Drought . Mexico Introduction Erosivity is a problem that has been increasing in intensity over the decades and is caused by environmental and socio- economic impacts worldwide (Nazuhan et al. 2018), one of the most important of these is the irregularity of precipitation, a parameter that was studied by Serrano et al. (2010). Erosion and erosivity are highly related to long periods of drought and have a certain effect on health (Al-Hemoud et al. 2018), economy (Al-Sudairawi et al. 1999; Al-Dousari 2005; Al- Dousari et al. 2019a), dust fallout (Al-Dousari 2009; Al- Dousari et al. 2016, 2017), physical properties with a common origin (Al-Dousari and Al-Hazza 2013), depositional rates of radionuclides (Aba et al. 2016; Aba et al. 2018), and nutrient exchange in marine ecosystems (Al-Enezi et al. 2014) and also can have a relation with native plants diversity and in the production sustainable energy (Al-Dousari et al. 2019a, b). Therefore, monitoring all parameters related to erosion and erosivity is essential to establish strategies to face its con- sequences (Ahmed and Al-Dousari 2013; Ahmed et al. 2016; Al-Dousari et al. 2019a, b). Precipitation is considered irreg- ular when it manifests extreme and intense magnitudes (Sadeghi et al. 2017; Yan et al. 2018), and these conditions can even generate soil erosivities that historically have harmed the agro-socioeconomic activities of Mexico (Diodato and Bellocchi 2009) by the loss of nutrients in sediment and soil (Diodato and Bellocchi 2009; Sadeghi and Hazbavi 2015; Nunes et al. 2016; Fenta et al. 2017; Zhao et al. 2017). Specifically Sinaloa, located in northern Mexico, has histori- cally been the state with the highest level of agricultural Responsible Editor: Ali M. Al-Dousari * Mariano Norzagaray-Campos mnorzaca@hotmail.com 1 Instituto Politécnico Nacional, Centro Interdisciplinario de Investigación para el Desarrollo Integral Regional (CIIDIR-IPN-Sinaloa), Guasave, Mexico 2 Universidad Autónoma de Sinaloa, Facultad de Ingeniería Mochis (UAS-FIM), Fuente de Poseidón y Ángel Flores s/n, Los Mochis, Mexico Arabian Journal of Geosciences (2020) 13:212 https://doi.org/10.1007/s12517-020-5153-y