Modelação da intercepção da precipitação em olival tradicional: possíveis implicações na protecção das plantas

Mestrado em Engenharia Agronómica - Instituto Superior de AgronomiaRecent studies have shown that the evaluation of interception loss in sparse forests or tree plantations should be made for individual trees, being the total value determined as the sum of the contribution from all individuals. The rainfall interception was measured and modeled over two years, in an isolated Olea europeaea L. tree, in a traditional olive grove in Castelo Branco. For the entire experimental period, interception loss was 243,5 mm, on a tree crown projected area basis, which corresponds to 18% of gross rainfall (). Modeling, made for each rainfall event using the sparse version of the Gash model, slightly underestimated interception loss with a value of around 240 mm, i.e., 17,8 % of . The modeling quality, evaluated according to a number criteria, was good, allowing the conclusion that the methodology used was adequate, in particular, the proposed modification to one of the methods used for determining the canopy storage capacity. The modeling was also made on a daily basis, i.e., admitting one event per each rainfall day. In this case, the interception loss was overestimated by 9,5%, mostly because 72% of all the rainfall events lasted for more than a day