The spatial variability of actual evapotranspiration across the Amazon River Basin based on remote sensing products validated with flux towers

Victor Hugo Da Motta Paca,Wim G M Bastiaanssen,Georges F Comair,Tim M Hessels,Gonzalo E Espinoza-Dávalos,Daniel Medeiros Moreira

doi:10.1186/s13717-019-0158-8

Abstract

Actual evapotranspiration (ET) is a major component of the water balance. While several international flux measurement programs have been executed in the tropical rain forest of the Amazon, those measurements represent the evaporative process at a few selected sites only. The aim of this study is to obtain the spatial distribution of ET, using remote sensing techniques, across the entire Amazon River Basin. Results from six global ET products based on remote sensing techniques (GLEAM, SEBS, ALEXI, CMRSET, MOD16, and SSEBop) were merged to obtain an ensemble prediction of the ET rates for the complex and in-accessible environment of the Amazon at a spatial resolution of 250 m. The study shows that the basin-wide average ET is 1316 mm/year with a standard deviation of 192 mm/year. This new ET-Amazon product was validated against seven different historic flux tower measurements. The energy balance closure of the in situ measurements varied between 86 and 116%. Only months with more than 70% completeness of in situ measurements were considered for validation. Different procedures for closure correction were included in the analyses. The correlation between measured and remotely sensed ET is good (R2 > 0.97 for consecutive periods of 2 to 12 months), and the bias correction is negligible for the energy balance residual method, which seemed most favorable. Monthly ET values have more uncertainty. The monthly RMSE values vary between 7.4 and 27.8 mm/month (the average RMSE is 22.2 mm/month), and the coefficient of determination (R2) varies between 0.48 and 0.87 (the average R2 is 0.53). The ET from the water balance is 1380 mm/year, being − 64 mm/year difference and 4.6% less than ET derived from the water balance. The evaporation from the Amazon basin inside Brazil is 5063 km3/year, followed by Peru with 1165 km3/year. ET-Amazon shows more spatial details and accuracy than alternative global ET products such as LandFlux-EVAL, Model Tree Ensemble (MTE), and WACMOS-ET. This justifies the development of new regional ET products.

Highlights

The hydro-climatic regime of the Amazon River Basin has a fundamental influence on the climate of South America and the globe (Fisch et al 1998; Malhi et al 2015; Nobre et al 2016)
The objective of this study is to develop a high resolution spatially distributed ET map (250 m × 250 m) for the entire Amazon basin— from upstream countries—based on existing remote sensing models and validated against independent flux towers installed over different land use classes
Validation of the ET-Amazon product Figure 4 shows the comparison of time-integrated ET-Amazon values and ET measured by the flux towers

Summary

Introduction

The hydro-climatic regime of the Amazon River Basin has a fundamental influence on the climate of South America and the globe (Fisch et al 1998; Malhi et al 2015; Nobre et al 2016). The hydrology of the Amazon is dependent on the water, heat, and carbon exchanges between land and atmosphere. These processes in the Amazon rain (2019) 8:6 natural land cover, this ecosystem is only partially understood. Major floods occurred during 2009, 2012, 2014, and 2015 (Marengo and Espinoza 2016). 2005 and 2010 were characterized by severe droughts (Nobre 2013). These increasing fluctuations of rainfall and streamflow raise severe environmental and agricultural concerns, and local authorities need to improve their assessment of droughts and floods and the impact thereof on livelihood and ecosystems. Based water accounting should be applied for systematic reporting on the water resources of the Amazon basin (e.g., Bastiaanssen and Chandrapala 2003; Karimi et al 2013)

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion