Jiang et al. (2025) Substantial Contribution of Woody Components to Rainfall Interception in Chinese Forests: Insights From a Refined Analytical Model

⚠️ Warning: This summary was generated from the abstract only, as the full text was not available.

Identification

• Journal: Water Resources Research
• Year: 2025
• Date: 2025-12-01
• Authors: Zhi‐Yun Jiang, Wei He, Zhi‐Ang Chen, John T. Van Stan, Li Guo, Chuan Yuan, Yu‐Jun Ma, Si‐Yi Zhang, Xiao‐Yan Li, Yu Zhang, Da‐Gang Wang, Jin‐Zhao Liu, Ye Jing, Ge Sun, Zhong‐Min Hu
• DOI: 10.1029/2025wr041189

Research Groups

Not available from the abstract.

Short Summary

This study refined the Gash model to distinguish rainfall interception by woody components from leaves, finding that woody components contribute significantly to total interception, particularly in needle-leaf forests and during non-growing seasons.

Objective

• To refine the widely-used Gash model to distinguish woody interception (I W ) from leaf interception (I L ), quantify their relative contributions to total rainfall interception (I R ), and assess their spatial and temporal variability across China's major forest types.

Study Configuration

• Spatial Scale: Major forest types across China.
• Temporal Scale: Year 2019, including growing and non-growing seasons (specifically winter).

Methodology and Data

• Models used: Refined Gash model.
• Data sources: Satellite data (2019), field observations.

Main Results

• The refined model showed strong agreement with field observations for total rainfall interception (r = 0.83, p < 0.01) and the fraction of rainfall interception to precipitation (r = 0.77, p < 0.01).
• The average annual rainfall interception (I R ) in 2019 was 112.4 ± 32.1 mm, with an I R /P ratio of 14.7 ± 8.2%.
• Leaf interception (I L ) accounted for 77.9% of I R , while woody interception (I W ) contributed the remaining 22.1%.
• The fraction of woody interception to total interception (I W /I R ) was highest in deciduous needle-leaf forests (DNF, mean: 51.9%) and lowest in evergreen broad-leaf forests (EBF, mean: 14.3%).
• I W /I R was larger in the non-growing season than the growing season for some forest types, exceeding 60% in winter for DNF.

Contributions

• Refined the Gash model to explicitly distinguish and quantify woody and leaf rainfall interception, addressing a previously overlooked aspect in hydrological modeling.
• Quantified the substantial and spatially/temporally variable role of woody components in rainfall interception, particularly highlighting their importance in needle-leaf forests and during non-growing seasons.
• Provided novel methods and valuable parameters to improve the accuracy of global hydrological model predictions.

Funding

Not available from the abstract.

Citation

@article{Jiang2025Substantial,
  author = {Jiang, Zhi‐Yun and He, Wei and Chen, Zhi‐Ang and Stan, John T. Van and Guo, Li and Yuan, Chuan and Ma, Yu‐Jun and Zhang, Si‐Yi and Li, Xiao‐Yan and Zhang, Yu and Wang, Da‐Gang and Liu, Jin‐Zhao and Jing, Ye and Sun, Ge and Hu, Zhong‐Min},
  title = {Substantial Contribution of Woody Components to Rainfall Interception in Chinese Forests: Insights From a Refined Analytical Model},
  journal = {Water Resources Research},
  year = {2025},
  doi = {10.1029/2025wr041189},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.1029/2025wr041189}
}