Spatio-temporal variations of reference crop evapotranspiration and pan evaporation in the West Songnen Plain of China

Abstract

The spatio-temporal variations of reference crop evapotranspiration (ETref) reflect the combined effects of meteorological variables, primarily wind speed, relative humidity, net radiation and air temperature. This study investigated the spatial distribution and temporal trends of ETref (calculated by the FAO-56 Penman-Monteith equation), pan evaporation (Epan) and pan coefficient (Kp) in a 140 × 103 km2 semi-humid to semi-arid area in China. The results show that: (i) although the spatial distributions of ETref and Epan are roughly similar and their spatial correlation is high over the growing season, Kp varied considerably in space due to high humidity in the east of the region and low humidity in the southwest; (ii) the monthly variations of ETref and Epan are similar to that of net radiation and opposite to that of relative humidity, while the monthly variation of Kp is similar to that of relative humidity and opposite to that of wind speed, and the long-term trend is slightly increasing for ETref and Epan, while significantly (10% significance level) increasing for Kp; and (iii) generally, the time series of ETref and Epan from 1951 to 2001 could be divided into three phases due to variations of meteorological variables. Citation Liang, L.-Q., Li, L.-J. & Liu, Q. (2011) Spatio-temporal variations of reference crop evapotranspiration and pan evaporation in the West Songnen Plain of China. Hydrol. Sci. J. 56(7), 1300–1313.