TITLE:
Monsoonal Influence on Evapotranspiration of the Tropical Mangrove Forest in Northeast India
AUTHORS:
Dipnarayan Ganguly, Raghab Ray, Natasha Majumder, Chumki Chowdhury, Tapan Kumar Jana
KEYWORDS:
Canopy Resistance, Evapotranspiration, Hydrological Cycle, India, Mangrove Forest, Monsoonal Cycle
JOURNAL NAME:
American Journal of Climate Change,
Vol.3 No.2,
June
27,
2014
ABSTRACT: Evapotranspiration
(ET) is an important part of the water cycle. This study reports on the monsoonal
influence on the temporal variation in evapotranspiration of an extremely water
conservative and salinity stressed tropical mangrove forest at the land-ocean
boundary of northeast coast of India. The magnitude and dynamics of
evapotranspiration (ET) exhibited seasonality dominated by monsoon and
evaporation rate was greater (0.055 ± 0.015 g·m-2·s-1)
during the monsoon than in pre-monsoon (0.049 ± 0.018 g·m-2·s-1)
and post-monsoon (0.044 ± 0.012 g·m-2·s-1). Seasonal difference in evapotranpiration was
mostly due to fluctuation of canopy resistance, which was the minimum during
monsoon when relative humidity was greater than in the dry season (pre- and
post-monsoon) and deficiency of water supply (ET ≈ ETeq) was minimum.
Evapotranspiration in the Sundarban mangrove ecosystem is the predominant
biophysical processes that recycles 67.7% of total precipitation annually to
the atmosphere, and has significant monsoonal influence.