Quantifying the contribution of meteorological factors and plant traits to canopy interception under maize cropland

A thorough understanding of crop canopy interception is crucial for understanding the relationship between water management and agriculture in water-limited regions. The factors that influence the interception process, such as meteorological conditions and plant traits, are diverse and uncertain. We...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Agricultural water management 2023-04, Vol.279, p.108195, Article 108195
Main Authors: Zhang, Rui, Seki, Katsutoshi, Wang, Li
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Canopy interception
Loess Plateau
Maize
Precipitation partitioning
Rainfed area
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Summary:A thorough understanding of crop canopy interception is crucial for understanding the relationship between water management and agriculture in water-limited regions. The factors that influence the interception process, such as meteorological conditions and plant traits, are diverse and uncertain. We divided meteorological factors and plant traits into three groups: precipitation-related meteorological factors (including precipitation event factors and raindrop factors), non-precipitation-related meteorological factors (air temperature, relative humidity, wind speed, etc.) and plant traits (leaf area index (LAI) and mean leaf inclination angle). The contributions of groups and each variable were then quantified with respect to canopy interception. This study was based on data from 80 events over four years (2017–2020). Measurements were taken under maize (Zea mays L.) cropland located on the southern Loess Plateau. The canopy interception (Ic) was calculated as the difference between precipitation and the sum of throughfall and stemflow and all of Ic was assumed to be lost to evaporation in the study. Results showed that the cumulative Ic of the 80 events was 395.9 mm, accounting for 39.7% of the contemporaneous total precipitation, but the mean proportion of canopy interception during each precipitation event (Ic percentage) was greater at 57.6% because of the high interception percentage during light precipitation events (0–5 mm, totaling 37 events). Pearson correlations analysis revealed a significant positive correlation between Ic and precipitation-related meteorological factors (including precipitation amount, duration, raindrop diameter (D50), terminal raindrop velocity (UV) (p 
ISSN:0378-3774
1873-2283
DOI:10.1016/j.agwat.2023.108195