Skip to Main Content
-
An improved water budget for the El Yunque National Forest, Puerto Rico, as determined by the Water Supply Stress Index Model
Author(s): Liangxia Zhang; Ge Sun; Erika Cohen; Steven McNulty; Peter Caldwell; Suzanne Krieger; Jason Christian; Decheng Zhou; Kai Duan; Keren J. Cepero-Pérez
Date: 2018
Source: Forest Science
Publication Series: Scientific Journal (JRNL)
Station: Southern Research Station
PDF: View PDF (6.0 MB)Description
Quantifying the forest water budget is fundamental to making science-based forest management decisions. This study aimed at developing an improved water budget for the El Yunque National Forest (ENF) in Puerto Rico, one of the wettest forests in the United States. We modified an existing monthly scale water balance model, Water Supply Stress Index (WaSSI), to reflect location watershed conditions, by incorporating a new empirical evapotranspiration (ET) equation derived from global eddy covariance data for rainforests. Modeling results indicated that the mean water yield was about 1795 mm yr-1 for the ENF region, representing approximately 63% of the annual precipitation. We found a wide range of the estimates for all key hydrological fluxes, particularly ET, among those reported in the literature. The large differences in both the magnitude and seasonality of fluxes are a result of differences in estimation methods and physical watershed boundaries used among these studies. The present modeling study that used the updated data products and modeling techniques provided an improved annual water budget with a smaller uncertainty compared to previous studies. Future studies should focus on quantifying water budgets, especially ET and precipitation, across a topographic gradient at a fine spatiotemporal scale.Publication Notes
- You may send email to pubrequest@fs.fed.us to request a hard copy of this publication.
- (Please specify exactly which publication you are requesting and your mailing address.)
- We recommend that you also print this page and attach it to the printout of the article, to retain the full citation information.
- This article was written and prepared by U.S. Government employees on official time, and is therefore in the public domain.
Citation
Zhang, Liangxia; Sun, Ge; Cohen, Erika; McNulty, Steven G; Caldwell, Peter V; Krieger, Suzanne; Christian, Jason; Zhou, Decheng; Duan, Kai; Cepero-Pérez, Keren J. 2018. An improved water budget for the El Yunque National Forest, Puerto Rico, as determined by the Water Supply Stress Index Model. Forest Science. 64(3): 268-279. 12 p. https://doi.org/10.1093/forsci/fxx016.Cited
Keywords
tropical rainforests, water budgets, evapotranspiration, water yield, WaSSI modelRelated Search
- Modeling the impacts of climate change, landuse change, and human population dynamics on water availability and demands in the Southeastern U.S.
- Uncertainty in the net hydrologic flux of calcium in a paired-watershed harvesting study
- A comparison of three methods to estimate evapotranspiration in two contrasting loblolly pine plantations: age-related changes in water use and drought sensitivity of evapotranspiration components
XML: View XML
Show More
Show Fewer
https://www.fs.usda.gov/treesearch/pubs/56351