The purpose of the present work was to evaluate water quality of rainfall (RF), throughfall (TF) and stemflow (SF) in a spontaneous forest ecosystem between March and October 2004. Three plots were established under the forest canopy where physical water quality analysis were carried out for throughfall and stemflow samples. Volume-weighted mean (VWM) values founded for pH, Electrical Conductivity (EC) (µS cm-1), Dissolved Solids (DS) and Turbidity (TB) were 6.55, 6.90 and 6.34; 41.57, 100.50 and 66.36; 6.09, 165 and 223.92; 1.53, 2.72 and 1.94 respectively to RF, TF and SF. Rainfall physical water quality characteristics were affected by the canopy, specially after drought periods between storms. Net throughfall and stemflow had the capacity to regularize RF pH, besides significantly increasing EC, DS and TB. The study was carried out on the Mata do Paraíso (EPTEA-MP), research station of the Universidade Federal de Viçosa (UFV) in the city of Viçosa, Minas Gerais - Brazil.
Rainfall; net throughfall; rainwater physical quality
