In Watershed Hydrology, we’ve been talking about soil moisture and water potential in relation to evaporation and infiltration. An important concept is the idea of the unsaturated zone, where the pores (or open spaces) in the soil, sediment or rock are not completely filled with water most of the time. …
Evapotranspiration is often said to be the most difficult water balance component to directly measure. When water goes from liquid to vapor, you can’t exactly catch it in a bucket or measure flow in a channel. Last week in class, we used a very simplified version of the weighing lysimeter to …
In Watershed Hydrology class this week, we’ll be conducting student-designed experiments to study the factors affecting evapotranspiration. I had a lot of fun picking out various species of plants today and I’m looking forward to seeing how each group sets up their experiments and what results we get. The procedure …
Cross-posted at Highly Allochthonous If you’ve walked through the forest on a rainy day and noticed that it’s drier under the trees, you’ve experienced interception. In hydrology, interception is when water gets hung up on vegetative leaves, needles, or branches and never makes it to the ground. The precipitation gets …