Planting density and canopy interception relation
Canopy interception is the rainwater intercepted and absorbed by the
leaves and branches. As for a rain event, the canopy interception
increased with rainfall when the rainfall is smaller, the relationship
between them is not a linear. Because there is a saturation value of the
canopy interception, canopy interception cannot increase with rainfall
when the canopy interception approximates the saturation value. Caragana
is deciduous and the canopy interception can be ignored as the value is
very small during the period of dormancy stage from October through
December to April. So the canopy interception is mainly occurred during
May to October. The canopy interception and interception rate in dense
caragana shrublands with 87 shrubs per 100m2 is higher
than that in low planting density in 2002. Under the same species, site,
gradient, slope position and slope direction, the quantity of branches
and leaves per unit ground area is also increased with an increasing
plant density, and thus canopy interception is also increased. The
relationship between canopy interception of a rain event in a plot (CI)
and planting density (PD) was found to be (Guo & Shao, 2004,2013; Guo
2014,2020):
CI = 0.0158PD0.6601
Where, CI is canopy interception in mm and PD is planting
density.