INFLUÊNCIA DA PRECIPITAÇÃO NOS MANGUEZAIS DA BARRA DO RIBEIRA – IGUAPE/SP

The mangrove, coastal ecosystem defined as a transition between terrestrialand marine environment is characterized as a salinized environment with aconstant flooding caused by tides. Emphasizing the System area CoastalCananéia - Iguape, its importance is related to the biomass production, insertedinto the natural bioenergetics system, increasing the productivity of the coastalzone with the introduction of organic particles. This means vegetal communitiesare adapted to many physical conditionants the active in the coastal zones,including the climate conditionants. This article is part of a larger work, whichpurpose is contributes to the comprehension of variability of the climaticattributes and their influence on the mangrove vegetation. Here are presentedthe data and analysis of the precipitation and interception of rain by the canopyof the mangrove forest located in Barra do Ribeira-Iguape/SP. A microclimatictower was installed with two meteorological stations and each one had raingauge to obtain an analysis of the variation of precipitation above and below thecanopy of mangrove. More sixteen rain gauges were installed in an area of 400m². Our research results shows that in microclimatic scales the main control forthe variation of climatic attributes is the canopy, mainly in rainfall distributionbelow the canopy, which consequently influences in the distribution ofvegetables species in the environment. It was found also that the amount ofrainfall that effectively reaches the ground and how this is redistributed withinthe environment depends on the density of the canopy and its twigs and trunks.To the mangrove this process is important because the amount of rain thateffectively reaches the soil helps to reduce salinity in the environment and isdeterminant for the type of predominant species in the mangrove. This projectcounted on the financing of the CNPq, process referring number 470434/2006-6to the proclamation MCT/CNPq 02/2006 - Universal