Evaluation of six potential evapotranspiration models for estimating crop potential and actual evapotranspiration in arid regions

摘要

Using potential evapotranspiration (PET) to estimate crop actual evapotranspiration (AET) is a critical approach in hydrological models. However, which PET model performs best and can be used to predict crop AET over the entire growth season in arid regions still remains unclear. The six frequently-used PET models, i.e. Blaney-Criddle (BC), Hargreaves (HA), Priestley-Taylor (PT), Dalton (DA), Penman (PE) and Shuttleworth (SW) models were considered and evaluated in the study. Five-year eddy covariance data over the maize field and vineyard in arid northwest China were used to examine the accuracy of PET models in estimating daily crop AET.