Summary
Summary
A detailed study of rainfall passage and capture in the tree canopy
The forest canopy breaks up and captures rainfall, playing an important role in many hydrological, biogeochemical and ecological processes. Over the course of a year Forest Research collected detailed meteorological and precipitation data and characterised the canopy at two sites: an oak forest at Alice Holt and a Scots pine forest at Thetford. The team evaluated the suitability of Gash’s model – the most widely used model of canopy interception – to the short timescales required by modern ecosystem process models.
Key findings and outputs
- Canopy characterisation: high resolution measurements used to determine the interception capabilities (throughfall and stemflow) and canopy characteristics (area indices, aerodynamic conductance and water holding capacity) of both sites
- Parameters: estimation of the five parameters required to calibrate Gash’s rainfall interception model
- Evaluation: the model performed well against measured data at the seasonable timescale, but its performance was less satisfactory for shorter timescales
Example of hemispherical photographs for Oak (left) and Scots pine (right)
Publications
Available on request.
Funders and partners
Part-funded by the EU Forest Focus ‘C’ scheme.
Status
2006-2007
Contacts
For details about the modelling component
For details of the instrumentation