Testing Reference Evapotranspiration Estimation Methods Using Evaporation Pan and Modeling in Maritime Region of Canada
Publication: Journal of Irrigation and Drainage Engineering
Volume 134, Issue 4
Abstract
Four methods of estimating daily reference evapotranspiration were evaluated with the data collected from 2004 to 2006 in a Maritime weather station, the Potato Research Centre, Fredericton, N.B., Canada. We tested two models [i.e., the FAO-56 Penman–Monteith (PM) and the Priestley–Taylor (PT) equations] and two Class A pan methods (Cuenca and Snyder equations). In order to assess the Evaporation Pan methods, an automatic Class A Pan system was installed in a grassed field surrounded by potato fields and continuously measured from 2004 to 2006. The results from three growing seasons (years 2004–2006) indicated that both evaporation pan methods generated lower estimations of compared to the PM and PT methods. The PT method produced the highest estimation. The Snyder method showed a better agreement with the PM . However, the agreement varied from year to year with an value range of 0.4–0.7. coefficients (a factor to convert pan observation to ) varied from 0.78 to 0.94. In general, the Cuenca generated lower values (0.83) than the Snyder method (0.87). Compared to the PM, the PT method overestimated , which may be related to the absence of humidity adjustment in the model. Furthermore, the research suggested that the time step played an important role in the estimation of in this region. The PM method at daily time step was simple but intended to overestimate by 10% compared to the hourly time-step method. In summary, when Class A Pan data are available, the Snyder equation can be used to calculate with an acceptable accuracy. If the PM method is used to estimate when pan observations are unavailable, a reduction of 10% to the calculated at daily time step could be applied to improve the accuracy of estimation.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
References
Allen, R. G., Jensen, M. E., Wright, J. L., and Burman, R. D. (1989). “Operational estimates of reference evapotranspiration.” Agron. J., 81, 650–662.
Allen, R. G., Pereira, L. S., Raes, D., and Smith, M. (1998). “Crop evapotranspiration. Guidelines for computing crop water requirements.” FAO irrigation and drainage, Paper No. 56, FAO, Rome.
Chow, T. L. (1994). “Design and performance of a fully automated evaporation pan.” Agric. Forest Meteorol., 68, 187–200.
Cuenca, R. H. (1989). Irrigation system design: An engineering approach, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N.J.
DehghaniSanij, H., Yamamoto, T., and Rasiah, V. (2004). “Assessment of evapotranspiration estimation models for use in semiarid environments.” Agric. Water Manage., 64, 91–106.
Doorenbos, J., and Pruitt, W. O. (1977). “Irrigation water requirements.” FAO Irrigation and Drainage, Paper No. 24, United Nations, New York.
Droogers, P., and Allen, R. G. (2002). “Estimating reference evapotranspiration under inaccurate data conditions.” Irrig. Drain. Syst., 16, 33–45.
Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO). (1998). “Crop evapotranspiration—Guidelines for computing crop water requirements.” FAO Corporate Document Repository, Rome.
Fontenot, R. L. (2004). “An evaluation of reference evapotranspiration models in Louisiana.” MSc thesis, Louisiana State Univ., Baton Rouge, La.
Frevert, D. K., Hill, R. W., and Braaten, B. C. (1983). “Estimation of FAO evapotranspiration coefficients.” J. Irrig. Drain. Eng., 109(IR2), 265–270.
Grismer, M. E., Orang, M., Snyder, R., and Matyac, R. (2002). “Pan evaporation to reference evapotranspiration conversion methods.” J. Irrig. Drain. Eng., 128, 180–184.
Hargreaves, G. H., and Samani, Z. A. (1985). “Reference crop evapotranspiration from temperature.” Appl. Eng. Agric., 1(2), 96–99.
Hoogenboom, G. (2001). “Weather monitoring for management of water resources.” Proc., Georgia Water Resources Conf., Institute of Ecology, Univ. of Georgia, Athens, Ga., 778–781.
Irmak, S., Haman, D. Z., and Jones, J. W. (2002). “Evaluation of class a pan coefficients for estimating reference evapotranspiration in humid location.” J. Irrig. Drain. Eng., 128, 153–159.
Jensen, M. E., Burman, R. D., and Allen, R. G. (1990). “Evapotranspiration and irrigation water requirements.” ASCE manuals and reprint on engineering practice, No. 70, ASCE, New York.
Jensen, M. E., and Haise, H. R. (1963). “Estimating evapotranspiration from solar radiation.” J. Irrig. and Drain. Div., 89, 15–41.
Liu, X. Y., and Lin, E. (2005). “Performance of the Priestley–Taylor equation in the semiarid climate of North China.” Agric. Water Manage., 71(1), 1–17.
López-Urrea, R., Martin de Santa Olalla, F., Fabeiro, C., and Moratalla, A. (2006). “Testing evapotranspiration equations using lysimeter observations in a semiarid climate.” Agric. Water Manage., 85, 15–26.
Marco, A. F. C. (2002). “Reference evapotranspiration based on Class A Pan evaporation.” Scientia Agricola, 59(3), 417–420.
McAneney, K. J., and Itier, B. (1996). “Operational limits to the Priestley-Taylor formula.” Irrig. Sci., 17(1), 37–43.
Monteith, J. L. (1965). “Evaporation and environment.” The state and movement of water in living organism, G. E. Fogg, ed., Proc., Soc. Experimental Biology Symp., Vol. 19, Academic Press, New York, 205–234.
Peacock, C. E., and Hess, T. M. (2004). “Estimating evapotranspiration from a reed bed using the Bowen ratio energy balance method.” Hydrolog. Process., 18, 247–260.
Penman, H. L. (1948). “Natural evaporation from open water, bare soil and grass.” Proc. R. Soc. London, Ser. A, 193, 120–146.
Priestley, C. H. B., and Taylor, R. J. (1972). “Assessment of surface heat-flux and evaporation using large-scale parameters.” Mon. Weather Rev., 100, 81–92.
Rayner, D. (2005). “Australian synthetic daily Class A pan evaporation.” Technical Rep., Queensland Government, Queensland, Australia.
Sepaskhah, A. R., and Ilampour, S. (1995). “Effects of soil moisture stress on evapotranspiration partitioning.” Agric. Water Manage., 28, 311–323.
Snyder, R. L. (1992). “Equation for evaporation pan to evapotranspiration conversions.” J. Irrig. Drain. Eng., 118, 977–980.
Snyder, R. L., Orang, M., Matyac, S., and Grismer, M. E. (2005). “Simplified estimation of reference evapotranspiration from pan evaporation data in California.” J. Irrig. Drain. Eng., 131, 249–253.
Steiner, J. L., Howell, T. A., and Schneider, A. D. (1991). “Lysimetric evaluation of daily potential evapotranspiration models for grain-sorghum.” Agron. J., 83, 240–247.
Suleiman, A. A., and Hoogenboom, G. (2007). “Comparison of Priestley–Taylor and FAO-56 Penman–Monteith for daily reference evapotranspiration estimation in Georgia.” J. Irrig. Drain. Eng., 133, 175–182.
Villalobos, F. J., and Fereres, E. (1990). “Evaporation measurements beneath corn, cotton, and sunflower canopies.” Agron. J., 82, 1153–1159.
Willmott, C. J. (1982). “Some comments on the evaluation of model performance.” Bull. Am. Meteorol. Soc., 63, 1309–1313.
Wright, J. L. (1981). “Crop coefficients for estimates of daily crop evapotranspiration.” Irrigation Scheduling for Water and Energy Conservation in the 80s. Proc., Irrigation Scheduling Conf., ASAE, St. Joseph, Mich., 18–26.
Wright, J. L. (1982). “New evapotranspiration crop coefficients.” J. Irrig. and Drain. Div., 108, 57–74.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Copyright
© 2008 ASCE.
History
Received: Sep 28, 2007
Accepted: Nov 29, 2007
Published online: Aug 1, 2008
Published in print: Aug 2008
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.