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.
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Published In
Journal of Irrigation and Drainage Engineering
Volume 134 • Issue 4 • August 2008
Pages: 417 - 424
Copyright
© 2008 ASCE.
History
Received: Sep 28, 2007
Accepted: Nov 29, 2007
Published online: Aug 1, 2008
Published in print: Aug 2008
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