Rainfall partitioning in forest canopies and floors-processes, linkages, and scaling issues

野火、虫害、疾病和商业伐木影响着世界上越来越大的森林面积，由此产生的影响加上全球气候变化，产生了对准确工具的日益需要，使水文学家、林学家和流域管理人员能够利用这些工具来评估干扰和气候对集水区产水量和生态系统功能的影响。到目前为止，还没有关于不同干扰类型如何影响森林地面及其水平衡组成部分的研究，这些信息对野火潜力具有重要影响。此外，还没有研究探讨林下降雨量的时空变异性与不同干扰和再生情景下土壤水分的时空分布之间的相互作用。

Wildfire, insect infestation, disease and commercial logging affect progressively larger areas of the world's forests, and resulting effects coupled with global climate change have created an increasing need for accurate tools with which hydrologists, foresters and watershed managers can evaluate disturbance and climate-related impacts on catchment water yield and ecosystem functions. To date, there has been no research examining how different disturbance types affect the forest floor and its water balance components, information that has important implications concerning wildfire potential. Further, there have been no studies examining the interactions between the spatial and temporal variability of understorey rainfall and the spatial and temporal distribution of soil moisture contents under different disturbance and regrowth scenarios.