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POTENTIAL, ACTUAL, AND EQUILIBRIUM EVAPOTRANSPIRATION IN A WHEAT FIELD 1
Author(s) -
MacQuarrie Pamela,
Nkemdirim Lawrence C.
Publication year - 1991
Publication title -
jawra journal of the american water resources association
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.957
H-Index - 105
eISSN - 1752-1688
pISSN - 1093-474X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1752-1688.1991.tb03114.x
Subject(s) - evapotranspiration , water content , udic moisture regime , hydrology (agriculture) , saturation (graph theory) , environmental science , field capacity , moisture , soil science , soil water , chemistry , mathematics , geology , loam , ecology , geotechnical engineering , organic chemistry , combinatorics , biology
This paper examines the relationship between both potential (E*) and nonpotential evapotranspiration and equilibrium evapotranspiration (EQ) in an irrigated wheat field in southcentral Alberta, Canada. The control exercised by surface wetness and root reservoir moisture content in determining the value of the Priestley‐Taylor constant a is explored. Also investigated is the relationship between a and the vapor flux fraction ET/(R‐G) where ET is the actual evapotranspiration, R the net radiation, and G the soil heat flux. It is shown that evapotranspiration occurred at the potential rate (E*) when the available soil moisture (ASM) within the root zone was ≥3 percent. a varied from 0.84 for a dry soil to 1.49 for a saturated soil. The mean a for E* was 1.24. Surface wetness sustained evapotranspiration at the potential rate when such wetting exceeded 2mm d −1 following a period of prolonged drawdown of soil moisture, α and ET/(R‐G) were positively correlated and this correlation strengthened with increasing soil moisture for constant values of the energy partitioning factor s+γ/s where s is the slope of the saturation humidity‐temperature curve and γ is the psychrometric constant. ET=EQ when ETI(R‐G) lay within the range of 0.59 to 0.82 corresponding to Bowen ratio (β) values of 0.22 and 0.69, respectively.