Spatial Patterns and Temporal Stability of Throughfall in a Mature Douglas-fir Forest

César Cisneros Vaca (Corresponding Author), Chandra Prasad Ghimire, Christiaan van der Tol

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Abstract

Forest plays a key role in spatial distribution of rainfall and nutrients at fine spatial scales. Areas of localized rainfall and nutrient input at the soil surface may have a large effect on several hydrological and biogeochemical processes. In this paper, a Douglas-fir stand was revisited to evaluate the changes in the throughfall spatial distribution and its temporal stability due to forest growth and thinning. We used 32 funnel-type collectors distributed in a random stratified array within a 0.2 ha plot to measure throughfall amounts from February to November 2015. The throughfall variability was much lower as compared to the values reported ~25 years ago in the same site. We further assessed the spatial patterns of throughfall in spring and summer. We detected a spatial correlation length of 12 m and 8 m for spring and summer, respectively, which are higher than the values reported for other mature Douglas-fir forests in similar climatic conditions. Temporal stability plots confirmed that detected spatial patterns were stable in time.

Original languageEnglish
Article number317
Number of pages15
JournalWater
Volume10
Issue number3
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 14 Mar 2018

Keywords

  • ITC-ISI-JOURNAL-ARTICLE
  • ITC-GOLD

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