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Evaluation of three complementary relationship approaches for evapotranspiration over the Yellow River basin
Author(s) -
Liu Shaomin,
Sun Rui,
Sun Zhongping,
Li Xiaowen,
Liu Changming
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
hydrological processes
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.222
H-Index - 161
eISSN - 1099-1085
pISSN - 0885-6087
DOI - 10.1002/hyp.6048
Subject(s) - evapotranspiration , environmental science , water balance , structural basin , hydrology (agriculture) , water cycle , advection , arid , drainage basin , aridity index , geology , geography , ecology , paleontology , physics , geotechnical engineering , cartography , biology , thermodynamics
Regional evapotranspiration is an important component of the hydrological cycle. However, reliable estimates of regional evapotranspiration are extremely difficult to obtain. In this study, the evapotranspiration simulated by three complementary relationship approaches, namely the Advection–Aridity (AA) model, the Complementary Relationship Areal Evapotranspiration (CRAE) model and the Granger (G) model, is evaluated with the observations over the Yellow River basin during 1981–2000. The simulations on overall annual evapotranspiration are reasonably good, with mean annual errors less than 10% except in extreme dry years. The AA model gives the best estimation for the monthly evapotranspiration, and the CRAE and GM models slightly overestimate in winter. In addition, the AA model presents the same closure error of water balance over the Yellow River basin as model G, which was less than that by the CRAE model. In rather dry and rather wet cases (with higher or lower available energy), all three models perform less well. Empirical parameters of these models need to be recalibrated before they can be applied to other regions. The distribution of evapotranspiration over the Yellow River basin is also discussed. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.