Abstract

GARCIA LEDEZMA, Yahaira Wegelmy; CANTU SILVA, Israel; GONZALEZ RODRIGUEZ, Humberto  and  YANEZ DIAZ, María Inés. Rainfall interception loss in the Tamaulipan thorn scrub under different thinning intensities. Rev. mex. de cienc. forestales [online]. 2018, vol.9, n.49, pp.148-164. ISSN 2007-1132.  https://doi.org/10.29298/rmcf.v9i49.178.

The amount of precipitation that reaches the earth's surface depends to a large extent on the vegetation cover. This cover intercepts much of the precipitation and stores it temporarily, where it is returned to the atmosphere by means of evapotranspiration. The objective of this study was to quantify and analyses the rainfall interception loss under different thinning intensities in an area of the Tamaulipan thorn scrub (MET) in northeastern Mexico. At the School of Forest Sciences in Linares, Nuevo León, Mexico, four plots were established for throughfall under four thinning intensities; 75, 50, 25 and 0 %, and a plot for gross rainfall measurement. 79 rainfall events were recorded (907.6 mm) for the years 2016-2017. The percentages of rainfall interception were 16, 29, 34 and 41 % for the thinning intensities of 75, 50, 25 and 0 %, respectively. Simple linear regression analyses indicate that throughfall represents 83, 70, 65 and 58 % of total precipitation for intensities of 75, 50, 25 and 0 %, respectively. The coefficients of determination for throughfall and gross rainfall were of r2 = 0.8651 and r2 = 0.8017 for the intensities to 25 and 0 %. This indicates that as the intensities is increased, throughfall is increased. The characteristics of the canopy and foliage of the different species of the MET could influence the percentage of rainfall interception.

Keywords : Forest hydrology; thinning intensities; Tamaulipan thorn scrub; interception loss; throughfall; canopy saturation.

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