A two year preliminary study of the water balance of a 16.2‐hectare watershed in Pennsylvania showed that spring and summer storms produced practically no overland surface runoff during the storms, but these storms did produce typical hydrographs having all the characteristics usually attributed to surface runoff. Less than 5% of the rainfall, and one third or less of the total runoff appeared as storm runoff. Since virtually all the water eventually reaching the stream channels infiltrated the soil and most of it percolated through the soil, the properties of the soil and the amount of water stored in this layer emerge as the most important regulators of runoff in the system.
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