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

野火、虫害、疾病和商业采伐对世界森林的影响日益扩大，由此产生的影响加上全球气候变化，使人们越来越需要精确的工具，以便水文学家、林业工作者和流域管理者能够评估干扰和气候对流域水量和生态系统功能的影响。迄今为止，还没有关于不同干扰类型如何影响森林地面及其水平衡成分的研究，这些信息对野火潜力具有重要意义。此外，在不同的扰动和再生情景下，还没有关于下层降水时空变异与土壤水分时空分布的相互作用的研究。

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.