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Quantifying evapotranspiration and its components in a coniferous subalpine forest in Southwest China
Author(s) -
Lin Y.,
Wang G. X.,
Guo J. Y.,
Sun X. Y.
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
hydrological processes
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.222
H-Index - 161
eISSN - 1099-1085
pISSN - 0885-6087
DOI - 10.1002/hyp.8321
Subject(s) - evapotranspiration , transpiration , environmental science , interception , montane ecology , watershed , eddy covariance , hydrology (agriculture) , vegetation (pathology) , precipitation , subalpine forest , water cycle , canopy interception , evaporation , water balance , plateau (mathematics) , atmospheric sciences , soil water , throughfall , soil science , ecosystem , geology , ecology , geography , meteorology , mathematics , mathematical analysis , pathology , computer science , biology , photosynthesis , machine learning , medicine , botany , geotechnical engineering
Abstract Evaporation is one of the most important processes in the soil‐plant‐atmosphere‐continuum water cycle. The objectives of the present study were to (1) test the feasibility of different methods for quantifying evapotranspiration (ET) and its components and (2) investigate and quantify ET and its components in a subalpine watershed from April to October, 2009. Our research site was in the Gongga Mountains, located on the southeastern fringe of the Qinghai‐Tibet Plateau. The components of ET could be observed using the interception, sap‐flow and stable isotope techniques. The summation of these components, referred to as the summed components method, was thought to be the ET. Similar estimates of ET from April to October were obtained using the summed components (736 mm) and Eddy covariance (598 mm) methods. The mean of two ET estimates (667 mm) accounted for 50% of the total water input. ET was composed of 6% soil evaporation, 19% vegetation transpiration and 75% interception evaporation. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.