Jun Inaoka, Ken’ichirou Kosugi, Naoya Masaoka, Tetsushi Itokazu, Kimihito Nakamura, Masamitsu Fujimoto
Received 2022/06/14, Accepted 2022/10/03, Published 2022/11/25

Jun Inaoka¹⁾, Ken’ichirou Kosugi¹⁾, Naoya Masaoka¹⁾, Tetsushi Itokazu¹⁾, Kimihito Nakamura¹⁾, Masamitsu Fujimoto²⁾

1) Graduate School of Agricultural Sciences, Kyoto University, Japan
2) Department of Science and Engineering, Ritsumeikan University, Japan

Previous studies have proven that rainfall–runoff characteristics in headwater catchments are affected by many factors, including topography, geology, and vegetation. However, only a few studies have explained the geological effects on rainfall–runoff characteristics based on observations from various catchments. In this study, we conducted runoff observations in 19 headwater catchments in two forests with different geological characteristics; based on these observations, we further conducted direct runoff and hydrograph recessions analyses. The runoff characteristics of the catchments were significantly affected by their local geological settings. Some catchments did not follow average trends, especially catchments with large baseflows, because of the effects of geological structures, such as dips and strikes in sedimentary-rocks and joints in granite. These catchments were likely to have wetter riparian zones, thereby facilitating direct flow, even in the case of reduced rainfall.

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Copyright (c) 2022 The Author(s) CC-BY 4.0