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Rainfall Interception Loss by Forest Canopies

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Forest Hydrology and Biogeochemistry

Part of the book series: Ecological Studies ((ECOLSTUD,volume 216))

Abstract

When rain falls onto a forest a proportion is intercepted by the canopy and evaporates back into the atmosphere, playing no further part in the terrestrial portion of the hydrologic cycle. This canopy interception loss, I c, can be appreciable (Table 20.1). The first published reports of I c date from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (Hoppe 1896; Horton 1919; see also Gash and Shuttleworth 2007). Since then numerous studies have been conducted with I c being found to account for 10–50% of season-long or annual rainfall, P g, (Roth et al. 2007); varying with both forest characteristics and climate. Because I c is an important and sometimes dominant component of forest evaporation (David et al. 2005), several models have been developed ranging from simple linear regression (e.g., Helvey and Patric 1965) to physically based numerical (e.g., Rutter et al. 1971, 1975), analytical (e.g., Gash 1979) and stochastic (e.g., Calder 1986) models. Although I c has been extensively studied by hydrologists, key processes, such as those responsible for the relatively high during-precipitation evaporation rates from forest canopies, E, are still not fully understood (Dunkerley 2009).

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Acknowledgments

The authors express their gratitude to Jeroen Staelens (Department of Forest and Water Management, Ghent University, Laboratory of Forestry, Gontrode, Belgium), Aleksandra Muzylo (Institute of Environmental Assessment and Water Research (IDAEA), CSIC, Barcelona, Spain), and Richard F. Keim (School of Renewable Resources, Louisiana State University) for reviewing the manuscript and for providing feedback that strengthened this chapter.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geography and Graduate Program in Environmental Science, Thompson Rivers University, Kamloops, Canada

    Darryl E. Carlyle-Moses

  2. VU University & Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, Amsterdam, Netherlands

    John H. C. Gash

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  1. Darryl E. Carlyle-Moses
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Correspondence to Darryl E. Carlyle-Moses .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Dept. of Geography, Center for Climate Research, University of Delaware, Newark, 19716-2541, Delaware, USA

    Delphis F. Levia

  2. , Department of Geography, Thompson Rivers University, Kamloops, V2C 5N3, British Columbia, Canada

    Darryl Carlyle-Moses

  3. , Department of International Affairs, University of Tsukuba, Ibaraki, 305-8577, Japan

    Tadashi Tanaka

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Carlyle-Moses, D.E., Gash, J.H.C. (2011). Rainfall Interception Loss by Forest Canopies. In: Levia, D., Carlyle-Moses, D., Tanaka, T. (eds) Forest Hydrology and Biogeochemistry. Ecological Studies, vol 216. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-1363-5_20

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