Computation of Landsat Based Evapotranspiration Maps along the South Platte and North Platte Rivers

It is important to quantify the consumptive water use by the vegetation when managing regional water resources in irrigated areas. Suitable models and algorithms applied to high resolution (30 m) satellite imagery provide a cost effective and time efficient method to obtain evapotranspiration estimations from bare soil and vegetation. The METRIC image processing model calculates net radiation, soil heat flux and sensible heat flux through a number of steps before estimating evapotranspiration as the residual from the energy balance. Sensible heat flux algorithms are calibrated using an operator selected wet and dry pixel. The complete energy balance obtained from the satellite images is calibrated using ground based reference evapotranspiration estimations. The paper describes an application of the METRIC model on parts of the South Platte and North Platte rivers in Colorado and Nebraska for individual days in 1997, 2001 and 2002. Landsat 5 and Landsat 7 shortwave and longwave bands were used. Weather data from selected meteorological stations within the study area was screened and used to estimate reference evapotranspiration. A water balance model was used to estimate evaporation from the soil. During the image processing it was necessary to iterate the selection of the wet and dry pixels after reviewing evapotranspiration behavior for natural vegetation and wet fields at full cover. Uneven distribution of recent precipitation events and operator dependency needed to be addressed. The resulting evapotranspiration maps appear to be congruent with ET from previous studies and will be used by local water management entities.