Abstract
Abstract This study of tropical rainfall fields was conducted in French Guyana in the moist tropical forest. Two experimental catchments were monitored. The area of these catchments is about 10 000 m2; one was deforested and is now a meadow, and the second is still in the state of primary forest. For both catchments, rainfall was measured by a dense network of rain gauges. Classical geostatistical methods and tools, especially variograms, were used to characterize the spatial structure of rainfall fields. Over the deforested catchment the spatial rainfall field is continuous. On the contrary, the rainfall field under the canopy of the forested catchment is unstructured. The vegetation there is completely responsible for the random rainfall distribution. However, when the canopy retention capacity is saturated, the spatial throughfall field can become continuous.
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