Canopy rainfall interception is an important hydrological water cycle process in the forest. Canopy interception of planted pine and oriental arborvitae forests was studied in Taihang Mountain region under nat-ural rainfall conditions using a rainfall and stem flow automated acquisition system. The results show that the canopy interception and stem flow of the two forests were positively correlated with total rainfall. Canopy rainfall intercepting capacity of pine was substantially greater than that of oriental arborvitae

but the volume of flowing into the trunk from the interception precipitation is smaller than oriental arborvitae. Specifically

the canopy of pine intercepted 18.90% of the rainfall by average

of which about 3.5% turned into stem flow

and approximately 81.7% of the precipitation reached the ground. The canopy of oriental arborvitae intercep-ted about 13.30% of the rainfall

of which 8.9% conversed into stem flow

and about 88.9% of the precipita-tion fell onto the ground. With consideration of canopy interception features

oriental arborvitae is suitable for planting on gentle slopes

while pine is suitable for planting on steep slopes.