Rainfall variability in the mountain forest catchments of Černá Opava tributaries in the Jeseníky Mountains

Vít Šrámek, Věra Fadrhonsová and Kateřina Neudertová Hellebrandová
Additional contact information
Vít Šrámek: Forestry and Game Management Research Institute, Jíloviště-Strnady, Czech Republic
Věra Fadrhonsová: Forestry and Game Management Research Institute, Jíloviště-Strnady, Czech Republic
Kateřina Neudertová Hellebrandová: Forestry and Game Management Research Institute, Jíloviště-Strnady, Czech Republic

Journal of Forest Science, 2025, vol. 71, issue 3, 138-148

Abstract: An unprecedented bark beetle outbreak has led to a significant decline in forest cover in Central Europe in the last 10 years, affecting an area estimated at more than 200 000 ha in the Czech Republic. Among the many ecological threats associated with extensive clearings, the potential alteration of hydrological processes is one of the most important. Therefore, after 2022, the precipitation-runoff balance in three catchments in the Jeseníky Mts. area was studied. This study focuses on the rainfall variability within the area, which was measured using 24 rain gauges deployed to cover different altitudes as well as the geographical exposures of the mountain catchments. Precipitation data was evaluated based on seven-day totals within the frost-free period. There was a significant increase in precipitation with altitude (12% increase for every 100 m a.s.l.) but only in less than half (48.7%) of the evaluated periods. No significant trend was demonstrated in the remaining periods, and a negative trend in precipitation with altitude was identified in 8.9% of cases. Additionally, the role of exposure was insignificant, although a tendency towards slightly lower precipitation was found for the eastern exposure at altitudes up to 1 000 m a.s.l., which may be related to the prevailing wind direction. We concluded that even a relatively dense monitoring network is not necessarily sufficient to provide accurate precipitation data in forested catchments, especially in mountain areas. Under such conditions, the use of complex models that also use radar data is recommended.

Keywords: altitudinal gradient; distribution of precipitation; exposure; forest watershed; synoptic situation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://jfs.agriculturejournals.cz/doi/10.17221/96/2024-JFS.html (text/html)
http://jfs.agriculturejournals.cz/doi/10.17221/96/2024-JFS.pdf (application/pdf)
free of charge

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:caa:jnljfs:v:71:y:2025:i:3:id:96-2024-jfs

DOI: 10.17221/96/2024-JFS

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Forest Science is currently edited by Mgr. Ilona Procházková

More articles in Journal of Forest Science from Czech Academy of Agricultural Sciences
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Ivo Andrle ().