Interception

In ball-playing competitive team sports, an interception or pick is a move by a player involving a pass of the ball—whether by foot or hand, depending on the rules of the sport—in which the ball is intended for a player of the same team but caught by a player of the opposing team, who thereby usually gains possession of the ball for their team. It is commonly seen in football, including Canadian and American football, as well as association football, rugby league, rugby union, Australian rules football and Gaelic football.

American/Canadian football

In American or Canadian football, an interception occurs when a forward pass is caught by a player of the opposing team. This leads to an immediate change of possession during the play: the defender who caught the ball immediately attempts to move the ball as far towards the opposing end zone as possible. Following the stoppage of play, if the interceptor retained possession of the ball, his team takes over possession at the spot where he was downed.

Interception (water)

Interception refers to precipitation that does not reach the soil, but is instead intercepted by the leaves and branches of plants and the forest floor. It occurs in the canopy (i.e. canopy interception), and in the forest floor or litter layer (i.e. forest floor interception ). Because of evaporation, interception of liquid water generally leads to loss of that precipitation for the drainage basin, except for cases such as fog interception.

Intercepted snowfall does not result in any notable amount of evaporation, and most of the snow falls off the tree by wind or melts. However, intercepted snow can more easily drift with the wind, out of the watershed. Conifers have a greater interception capacity than hardwoods. Their needles gives them more surface area for droplets to adhere to, and they have foliage in spring and fall, therefore interception also depends on the type of vegetation in a wooded area.

Mitscherlich in 1971 calculated the water storage potential as interception values for different species and stand densities. A storm event might produce 50 - 100 mm of rainfall and 4 mm might be the maximum intercepted in this way. Grah and Wilson in 1944 did sprinkling experiments where they watered plants to see how much of the intercepted is kept after watering stops.

Interception (disambiguation)

Interception may refer to:

See also