Inhydrology,moisture recycling orprecipitation recycling refer to the process by which a portion of theprecipitatedwater thatevapotranspired from a given area contributes to the precipitation over the same area. Moisture recycling is thus a component of thehydrologic cycle. The ratio of the locally derived precipitation (PL) to total precipitation (P) is known as therecycling ratio,ρ:[1]
The recycling ratio is a diagnostic measure of the potential for interactions betweenland surface hydrology and regionalclimate.[2][3][4][5]Land use changes, such asdeforestation oragricultural intensification, have the potential to change the amount of precipitation that falls in a region. The recycling ratio for the entire world is one, and for a single point is zero. Estimates for the recycling ratio for theAmazon basin range from 24% to 56%, and for theMississippi basin from 21% to 24%.[6]
The concept of moisture recycling has been integrated into the concept of theprecipitationshed. A precipitationshed is the upwind ocean and land surface that contributes evaporation to a given, downwind location's precipitation. In much the same way that a watershed is defined by a topographically explicit area that providessurface runoff, the precipitationshed is a statistically defined area within which evaporation, traveling via moisture recycling, provides precipitation for a specific point.
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