Seasonal variation of evapotranspiration, Priestley-Taylor coefficient and crop coefficient in diverse landscapes

Abstract

Priestley-Taylor equation (PT) and the Penman-Monteith equation (PM) are commonly used methods for regional evapotranspiration monitoring, using the PT coefficient (α_a) and PM crop/vegetation coefficient (K_c). This paper investigates the seasonal changes in α_a and K_c at five sites in Australia and China, to understand the relationship between environmental conditions and evapotranspiration when applying different evaporation estimation methods. The research shows that higher actual evapotranspiration does not lead to higher α_a and K_c values. α_a and K_c perform similarly in cropland and forest environments in both China and Australia. Both α_a and K_c continuously increase to a peak during the growing season and then decrease to their lowest values during the winter season. Considering K_c’s similar performance to α_a and its greater data processing requirements, K_c has few advantages for estimating regional evapotranspiration. Applying the Priestley-Taylor equation with a regional α indicator will enhance the accuracy and reduce the workload when estimating regional evapotranspiration for similar landcover types based on remote sensing.

Keywords

Crop coefficient, Evapotranspiration / Priestley-Taylor coefficient / Seasonal variation / Landscapes

Declaration of Competing Interest

The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the open Fund of State Key Laboratory of Remote Sensing Science (Grant No. PFSLRSS202023), the Qinghai Science and Technology Plan (Grant No. 2019-SF-155), and the National Natural Scientific Foundations of China (Grant No. 41701403).

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