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Stemflow and throughfall in a tropical dry forest
Author(s) -
Kellman Martin,
Roulet Nigel
Publication year - 1990
Publication title -
earth surface processes and landforms
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.294
H-Index - 127
eISSN - 1096-9837
pISSN - 0197-9337
DOI - 10.1002/esp.3290150106
Subject(s) - stemflow , throughfall , understory , environmental science , canopy , hydrology (agriculture) , precipitation , leaching (pedology) , agroforestry , deciduous , rainforest , tropics , canopy interception , windthrow , infiltration (hvac) , forestry , soil water , soil science , ecology , geology , geography , biology , geotechnical engineering , meteorology
The rainfall received by a small plot of tropical deciduous forest on sand dunes in Veracruz, Mexico, was partitioned into stemflow and throughfall components to determine whether funnelling by stemflow could reduce soil leaching by transmitting large volumes of water through vertical soil pathways beneath each stem. Although soil infiltration capacities were high, only a very small proportion of incoming rainfall was funnelled by canopy stems. This is attributed to the widely‐branched morphology of mature trees. Smaller trees and shrubs were more effective funnellers of rainfall, and a crude estimate of the magnitude of stemflow in the understorey stratum in one rain event suggested a contribution approximately ten times that of canopy stemflow. However, even if augmented by the understorey stratum in this way, total stemflow is unlikely to have exceeded 10 per cent of gross precipitation, implying that it does not represent an important leaching‐avoidance mechanism in this forest.