Rainfall interception by trees of Pinus radiata, and Eucalyptus viminalis, in a 1300 mm rainfall area of southeastern New South Wales: I. Gross losses and their variability

✍ Scribed by E. W. Pook; P. H. R. Moore; T. Hall

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1991
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 923 KB
• Volume: 5
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0885-6087
• DOI: 10.1002/hyp.3360050202

✦ Synopsis

Interception loss, I, was determined by continuous concurrent measurements of the canopy precipitation balances of a mature seed orchard tree of Pinus radiata and a dominant tree of Eucalyptus viminalis at a mountainous high rainfall site (900 m a d . ) in Tallaganda State Forest of the Upper Shoalhaven Catchment. Approximate canopy storage capacity (Sc) of the pine was 54 I, and that of the eucalypt was 11.3 1. Gross pine I was 26.5 per cent and eucalypt I was 8.3 per cent of total incident rainfall over a period of 18 months, from June 1975 to December 1976. The exponential model that provided the best fit to overall data relating I to gross rainfall (P,) was of good precision for the pine (r2 = 0.73) but rather poor precision for the eucalypt ( i f = 0.27). A consistent pattern in interception data of the two canopy types suggested that variation in I was related to change in pervasive conditions influencing rates of evaporation from wet canopies during rainfall. Multiple regression analyses confirmed that factors such as rainfall intensity and windspeed explained some of the variation in eucalypt I but little in pine I.

Negative eucalypt I and corresponding low values of pine I over a wide range of P, (up to 20 mm) suggest that capture of wind-borne precipitation (cloud, mist, or fog) had also complicated the canopy precipitation balances.