An evaluation of two hourly reference evapotranspiration equations for semiarid conditions

Abstract

The methodology proposed by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) (Doorenbos, J., Pruitt, W.O., 1977. Crop water requirements. FAO irrigation and drainage. Paper No. 24. FAO, Rome) and updated by Allen et al. (Allen, R.G., Pereira, L.S., Raes, D., Smith, M., 1998. Crop evapotranspiration. Guidelines for computing crop water requirements. FAO irrigation and drainage. Paper No. 56. FAO, Rome) for calculating crop water requirements is the most extended and accepted method worldwide. This method requires the prior calculation of reference evapotranspiration (ET o). This study evaluates the FAO-56 and American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) Penman–Monteith (PM) equations for estimation of hourly ET o under the semiarid conditions of the province of Albacete (Spain). The FAO-56 and ASCE equations (hourly time step) were compared against measured lysimeter ET o values at Albacete for 13 days during the period of April–October 2002 and 16 days during April–October 2003. The average of estimated FAO-56 Penman–Monteith ET o values was equal to the average of measured values. However, the average of estimated ASCE Penman–Monteith values was 4% higher than the average of measured lysimeter ET o values. This method overestimated measured lysimeter ET o values by 0.45 mm h −1. Simple linear regression and error analysis statistics suggest that agreement between both estimation methods and the lysimeter was quite good for the province of Albacete. In this paper, the FAO-56 Penman–Monteith equation for calculating hourly ET o values was more accurate than the ASCE Penman–Monteith method under semiarid weather conditions in Albacete.