Status: this discussion paper is a preprint. It has been under review for the journal Hydrology and Earth System Sciences (HESS). The manuscript was not accepted for further review after discussion.
Measurement and modelling of rainfall partitioning by deciduous
Potentilla fruticosa shrub on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, China
Si-Yi Zhangand Xiao-Yan Li
Abstract. Rainfall partitioning is a key process of ecosystem water cycle which has not get enough attention in the alpine deciduous shrub. Moreover，there is no apposite analytical model that suits to estimate the rainfall redistribution of the deciduous shrub with great changes in coverage and leaf storage capacity due to foliation and defoliation. Field and laboratory experiments to assess these processes and to determine vegetation and atmospheric parameters were established for deciduous Potentilla fruticosa shrub on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. Based on the experimental data, a variable parameter Gash model especially for deciduous shrub rainfall partitioning which is adapted from the revised Gash model was developed to represent these processes. The performance of the variable parameters Gash model in modelling the rainfall partitioning of the deciduous shrub patches is better than that of the original model. The variable parameters Gash model treated the water captured by the stem as that captured by leaf canopy considering the low height of shrub and its low coverage in leafless period. Thus, the model developed here were perfect to represent the rainfall partitioning processes. It was found that the interception, throughfall and stemflow accounted for 21.44 %, 29.26 % and 49.30 % of gross rainfall in the shrub patches during the growing season of 2012, respectively. 42.6 % of the interception was loss by evaporation from the saturated leaf canopy during rainfall events. The results indicate that adaptations of the analytical model in this paper improved its performance and provide hypotheses more near the realities in the deciduous shrub.
Received: 12 Nov 2016 – Discussion started: 08 Dec 2016
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Guangdong Key Laboratory of Agricultural Environment Pollution Integrated Control, Guangdong Institute of Eco-Environmental Science & Technology, Guangzhou 510650, China
State Key Laboratory of Earth Surface Processes and Resource Ecology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, 100875, China
We redefined some hypotheses and parameters of a widespread used analytical model to adapt to the special canopy structure of the deciduous shrub, the results showed that the new model had better performance than the original model. The results also revealed that the importance of stem evaporation in deciduous shrub interception which could be underestimated in the original model.
We redefined some hypotheses and parameters of a widespread used analytical model to adapt to...
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