Accuracy of methods for simulating daily water surface evaporation evaluated by the eddy covariance measurement at boreal flux sites

Abstract

Evaporation from the surface of water is a vital component of the hydrological cycle. Accurately simulating evaporation is crucial for modeling hydrological processes, ensuring ecosystem water efficiency, and managing water resources. Previous methods for evaluating evaporation have generally been limited to a single site and on a regional scale. Based on eddy covariance measurements of 14 boreal flux sites, the accuracy of 26 methods for simulating daily water surface evaporation was comprehensively evaluated in this study. Most methods accurately simulated daily evaporation at most sites with a KGE >0.60. The combination methods with simultaneous calibration of the energy and aerodynamic terms and the double-parameter aerodynamic methods based on the linear and exponential functions showed the best performance, with the median KGE of the evaluated sites ranging from 0.72 to 0.76. The Bowen ratio energy balance (BREB) method embedded with Tw, Rs-based two-variable empirical methods, double-parameter aerodynamic methods, and the combination method of the energy term based on net radiation (Rn) and the aerodynamic term based on the exponential function method performed better than the other methods of the same type. The relative error (RE) simulated by most methods was generally within ± 30 %, with the median RE of all sites within ± 10 % for each method. The combination methods tended to overestimate the level of evaporation, whereas the BREB-type and aerodynamic methods tended to underestimate the extent of evaporation. The simulation accuracy of the daily evaporation showed significant variance among the sites. It showed the best model performance at two FLUXNET and two sites taken from the literature, in which 75 % of the methods were able to accurately simulate daily evaporation with a Kling–Gupta efficiency (KGE) >0.80. All methods performed poorly at the three sites from the literature and were mainly due to the lack of measured variables with a strong correlation with the latent heat flux (LE). The FLUXNET sites generally showed better performance. The observed LE of the sites with the best model performance generally showed a unimodal distribution throughout the year. The simulation accuracy of non-unimodal distribution sites mainly depended on the correlation between the LE and related variables. The combination of the energy term based on Rn and the aerodynamic term based on the power function method showed the best model stability. This finding indicated that the calibrated method was robust and showed high stability in simulating daily evaporation, and it was recommended for application in other sites or regions. The optimization of parameters calibrated in this study may improve the accuracy of simulating the daily evaporation for the application of the Penman and Priestley–Taylor equations when the water heat storage measurement is missing.