Water Resources Research Act Program

Details for Project ID 2010DE189B

A Watershed Scale Forest Inventory of the Fair Hill Natural Resource Management Area

Institute: Delaware
Year Established: 2010 Start Date: 2010-06-01 End Date: 2011-02-01
Total Federal Funds: $1,500 Total Non-Federal Funds: $3,000

Principal Investigators: Delphis Levia, Michelle Lepori-Bui

Project Summary: The overarching goal of the project is to conduct a watershed scale forest inventory and relate the spatial arrangement of canopy cover to the partitioning of incident rainfall into throughfall and stemflow. The central hypothesis is that tree canopy coverage in watersheds may affect this partitioning as a function of tree species, which has forestry management and water quality implications. Results from this study will be of direct use and relevance to an ongoing NSF-funded study examining the ecohydrology and biogeochemistry of the watershed as it will allow plot level research to be extrapolated to larger areas with confidence. Specific objectives are to conduct a watershed inventory of trees within the catchment and (2) examine tree canopy coverage in relation to partitioning of incident rainfall into throughfall and stemflow.