Understanding the water dynamics on a tropical forest litter using a new device for interception measurement

Abstract Forest litter is a layer on the forest floor formed by materials falling from the vegetation. It plays an important role in the interception process in forests and, combined with canopy interception, can represent up to 50% of the total evaporation. However, the forest litter interception is usually underestimated and has been neglected mainly because of the difficulties in performing these measurements. This paper presents an equipment called Litter Interception Device (LID), which can be used both in laboratory and on site to measure the forest litter interception and the intensity of water flux to the soil. We tested and calibrated the LID in laboratory using three different simulated rainfall intensities above three different litter samples amounts. The samples were collected in an undisturbed wooded Cerrado area located in the state of São Paulo, Brazil. The maximum and minimum water storage capacities of the wooded Cerrado litter ranged between 1.0–3.07 and 0.78–2.27 mm, respectively. The device enables continuous measurements of the litter interception with 0.006 mm min−1 of precision and can assist future studies on the role of forest litter on hydrological processes and water balance improvements.