Comparison of Priestley-Taylor and FAO-56

Penman-Monteith for Daily Reference Evapotranspiration

Estimation in Georgia
Ayman A. Suleiman1 and Gerrit Hoogenboom2

Abstract: The climate in Georgia and other southeastern states of the United States is considered to be humid and the annual precipi-
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tation is usually greater than the annual potential evapotranspiration 共ET兲. However, during several months of the year, supplemental
irrigation is needed to prevent yield reducing water stress due to the temporal rainfall variability and sometimes due to long-term droughts.
The Priestley-Taylor 共PT兲 equation has been used operationally in Georgia to compute ET for irrigation scheduling because of its
simplicity, its general acceptable performance in humid regions, and its limited input requirements. A recent study for a site in the humid
southeastern United States found that PT overestimated ET and was less accurate than the FAO-56 Penman-Monteith 共PM兲 among some
of the approaches that were evaluated. The objective of this study was to assess the potential improvement that can be achieved by
replacing PT with FAO-56 PM in Georgia and other southeastern states in a humid climate. More than 70 weather stations across Georgia
are available as part of the Georgia Automated Environmental Monitoring Network. Nine representative sites, including Blairsville in a
mountainous area and Savannah in a coastal area, were selected to assess the potential improvements that may be achieved by replacing
PT with FAO-56 PM. Each site had at least 10 years of daily records that included minimum and maximum air temperature, solar
radiation, wind speed, and vapor pressure deficit. PT underestimated the daily and monthly ET during the winter months in the central and
southwestern areas and overestimated the daily and monthly ET during the summer months in the coastal and mountainous areas. For the
warm season, i.e., April through September, PT slightly overestimated the cumulative ET in the central and southwestern areas, moder-
ately for the mountainous area and severely for the coastal area. Based on these results, it is anticipated that the use of FAO-56 PM for
estimating ET will standardize the ET calculations and improve irrigation efficiency in Georgia, especially for the mountainous and
coastal areas.
DOI: 10.1061/共ASCE兲0733-9437共2007兲133:2共175兲
CE Database subject headings: Georgia; Irrigation; Evapotranspiration.

Introduction tation during the warmer half of the year 共April–September兲

The southeastern states in the United States are considered to be
humid states and usually the annual precipitation is greater than
the annual potential evapotranspiration 共ET兲. However, in some
months, supplemental irrigation is needed due to the rainfall vari-
ability to prevent water stress that can potentially reduce yield.
The irrigation requirements are higher in the central region of
Georgia and lower in the northern and southern regions of the
state where precipitation is higher due to the influence of the
mountains in the north and the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of
Mexico in the south 共Alexandrov and Hoogenboom 1999兲. The
irrigation requirements have been increasing in some areas of
the state since the end of the 1970s due to a decrease in precipi-
1
Assistant Professor, Dept. of Land, Water, and Environment, Faculty
of Agriculture, Univ. of Jordan, Amman, Jordan.
2
Professor, Dept. of Biological and Agricultural Engineering, Univ. of
Georgia, Griffin, GA 30223 共corresponding author兲.
Note. Discussion open until September 1, 2007. Separate discussions
must be submitted for individual papers. To extend the closing date by
one month, a written request must be filed with the ASCE Managing
Editor. The manuscript for this paper was submitted for review and pos-
sible publication on September 6, 2005; approved on August 3, 2006.
This paper is part of the Journal of Irrigation and Drainage Engineer-
ing, Vol. 133, No. 2, April 1, 2007. ©ASCE, ISSN 0733-9437/2007/2-
175–182/$25.00.
共Hook 1991; Alexandrov and Hoogenboom 2001兲 and due to
the increase of irrigated land. The total irrigated area reached
610,000 ha in 2000 共Harrison 2001兲, an increase of more
than 58% from 1980 共Hook et al. 1984兲. Maize, cotton, and
peanut accounted for approximately three-quarters of the total
irrigated crop land 共Harrison 2001兲. Irrigation requirements also
increased significantly during drought years, which occurred
several times at the end of the 20th and the start of the 21st
Centuries 共Alexandrov and Hoogenboom 2001; Hoogenboom
2001; Hoogenboom et al. 2003兲.
The Priestly-Taylor 共1972兲 共PT兲 approach for calculating ET
for irrigation scheduling has been operationally used in Georgia
because of its simplicity 共Liu and Lin 2005兲, its general accept-
able performance in humid regions 共Jensen et al. 1990;
McAneney and Itier 1996兲, and its limited input requirements 共air
temperature and solar radiation兲 共Hoogenboom 2001兲. The fre-
quent lack of meteorological variables that are needed for other
more physically sound reference ET approaches encourages the
use of PT and other approaches that do not require detailed data
共Utset et al. 2004兲. Jensen et al. 共1990兲 showed that PT provided
reasonable monthly, annually, and peak ET values for different
humid locations. However, this is not the case for all humid areas.
Yoder et al. 共2005b兲 found that, using a large weighing lysimeter,
PT overestimated ET and that it was less accurate than FAO-56
Penman-Monteith 共PM兲 among some other approaches for a study

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J. Irrig. Drain Eng. 2007.133:175-182.

 Table 1. Latitude, Longitude, Elevation, and Installation Dates for the
Nine Weather Stations
Latitude Longitude Elevation Installation
Station 共N兲 共W兲 共m兲 date
Alma 31° 32⬘ 82° 31⬘ 63 March 1993
Attapulgus 30° 45⬘ 84° 30⬘ 72 July 1992
Blairsville 34° 50⬘ 83° 56⬘ 587 January 1992
Griffin 33° 15⬘ 84° 17⬘ 287 June 1991
Midville 32° 52⬘ 82° 14⬘ 79 October 1991
Plains 32° 02⬘ 84° 23⬘ 161 January 1992
Rome 34° 20⬘ 85° 08⬘ 187 July 1992
Savannah 32° 00⬘ 81° 17⬘ 8 December 1992
Watkinsville 33° 52⬘ 83° 28⬘ 245 August 1992
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conducted at a site in the humid southeastern United States.

Amatya et al. 共1995兲 compared PT to FAO-56 PM and found that
PT estimates of monthly ET for the peak summer months were in
closest agreement with FAO-56 PM for three coastal plain sites in
eastern North Carolina, but they noticed that PT estimates of an-
nual ET were less than FAO-56 PM. Irmak et al. 共2003兲 found
that PT underestimated the daily ET when compared with
FAO-56 PM in Florida and that the PT underestimations tended to
be higher at lower ET rates. These mixed results of PT perfor-
mance in neighboring states prompted us to conduct a study for
ten years at nine sites that represent different regional climatic
areas and different terrain.
Allen et al. 共1998, 2005兲 recommended the use of the FAO-56
PM reference evapotranspiration for irrigation scheduling world-
wide, because PM generally yields the best results under various
climatic conditions 共Allen et al. 1994; Mohan and Arumugam
1996; Oliveira and Yoder 2000; Itenfisu 2003兲. In addition to
air temperature and solar radiation, FAO-56 PM requires wind
speed and vapor pressure deficit. It was developed for a hypo-
thetical well-watered and actively growing uniform grass of
0.12 m with a surface resistance of 70 s m−1 and an albedo of
0.23 共Allen et al. 1998兲. The objective of this study was to assess
the potential improvement that can be achieved by replacing PT
with FAO-56 PM in Georgia and other southeastern states with
humid climate.
Materials and Methods
Study Area and Data Measurements
Nine representative sites were used in this study, including
Attapulgus in the southwest, Blairsville in the mountainous area,
Rome in the northwest, and Savannah in the coastal area. Alma,
Griffin, Midville, Plains, and Watkinsville are in the central re-
gion of the state. Latitude, longitude, elevation, and installation
dates for each site are presented in Table 1. The weather stations
for all these locations have been in operation for more than a
decade since the first installation of the weather station in Griff in
1991. The period of data that was used ranged from 11 to 13
years, beginning with the year after installation 共to have a com-
plete year of observations兲 until the end of 2004. These weather
stations are a subset of the more than 70 weather stations that
encompass the Georgia Automated Environmental Monitoring
Network 共AEMN; www.Georgiaweather.net; Hoogenboom
2000a, 2001兲 共Fig. 1兲. The AEMN collects detailed weather
information for agricultural and environmental applications, in-
Fig. 1. Map of Georgia showing the locations of all the Georgia
automated environmental monitoring network sites
cluding irrigation and water management 共Hoogenboom 2000b;
Hoogenboom et al. 2003兲. Each station monitors air temperature,
relative humidity, precipitation, wind speed, wind direction, solar
radiation, soil moisture, soil temperature at 5, 10, and 20 cm
depths and barometric pressure. In general, the stations and sen-
sors are installed based on the guidelines of the World Meteoro-
logical Organization 共WMO 1981兲. All sensors are scanned at a
1 s frequency and summarized every 15 min. At midnight, the
daily extremes and totals are determined. Quality control is per-
formed daily and there are no missing data. In case of sensor
failure, the data are replaced with those from a neighboring or
similar station. Sensor heights are identical for each station. Each
station also has identical sensors for uniformity, ease of mainte-
nance, and quality control.
Average annual total rainfall, average monthly total rainfall,
average monthly maximum and minimum air temperature, and
average monthly daily solar radiation are shown in Fig. 2. These
averages were calculated using the available meteorological data
from these nine weather stations and not from the long-term
historical climatic data. Average annual rainfall was greater than
1,100 mm for all sites but Midville, where it was 1,081 mm. The
difference between the highest 共at Blairsville兲 and the lowest
average annual rainfall was about 200 mm. Rome, Griffin, and
Savannah had similar average annual rainfall 共within 20 mm兲,
although these locations ranged from the northwest to the
southeast of Georgia. Also, Attapulgus, in the deep south, and
Blairsville, the most northern station, had similar average annual
rainfall 共within 20 mm兲. Average total monthly rainfall patterns
were different from one site to another. The average total monthly
rainfall in June for Savannah was the highest among all stations,
whereas the lowest was found in April in Alma. Generally,
April and May had the lowest average rainfall amounts for all the
stations.
Average monthly minimum temperature was higher than 0 ° C
for all sites but Blairsville in January, February, and December
and Rome in January. The average monthly minimum tempera-
ture was highest for all the sites in July and it was about 20° C,

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Fig. 2. Average annual total rainfall, monthly total rainfall, monthly maximum and minimum air temperature, and monthly daily solar radiation
for the different sites
except for Blairsville where it was about 5 ° C lower. In January,
the average monthly maximum temperature ranged from 10° C in
Blairsville, Rome, and Watkinsville to 17° C in Alma and Atta-
pulgus, whereas in July it ranged from 30 to 34° C for the differ-
ent sites. The average monthly solar radiation ranged from
8 MJ m−2 day−1 in December to 20 MJ m−2 day−1 in May for the
different sites.
Model Descriptions
FAO-56 Penman-Monteith
The FAO-56 Penman-Monteith equation for a grass reference
crop according to Allen et al. 共1998兲 is defined as follows:
900
0.408⌬共Rn − G兲 + ␥ u2共es − ea兲
T + 273
ET0 = 共1兲
⌬ + ␥共1 + 0.34u2兲
where ET0⫽grass reference evapotranspiration 共mm day−1兲;
Rn⫽net radiation 共MJ m2 day−1兲; G⫽soil heat flux 共MJ m2 day−1兲;
T⫽mean daily air temp 共°C兲; u2⫽mean daily wind speed at 2 m
height 共m s−1兲; es − ea⫽vapor pressure deficit 共kPa兲; ⌬⫽slope
of the vapor pressure-temperature curve 共kPa ° C−1兲; and
␥⫽psychometric constant 共kPa ° C−1兲. The terms in the numera-
tor on the right-hand side of the equation are available energy
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J. Irrig. Drain Eng. 2007.133:175-182.
force and air dryness indicator, respectively 共Kim and Entekhabi
1997兲.
Priestley-Taylor
The Priestley-Taylor equation according to Priestly-Taylor 共1972兲
is defined as
␣ ⌬
ETPT = 共Rn − G兲 共2兲
␭⌬+␥
where ETPT⫽evapotranspiration 共mm day−1兲; ␣⫽constant and
equal to 1.26; and ␭⫽latent heat of vaporization 共MJ kg−1兲.
Net radiation, the latent heat of vaporization, the psychometric
constant, and the slope of the vapor pressure-temperature curve
were calculated using the FAO-56 procedure and the daily soil
heat flux 共G兲 was assumed to be 0 based on the FAO-56 recom-
mendation for daily ET calculation 共Allen et al. 1998兲.
In addition to comparing PT and FAO-56 PM ET with
measured inputs, FAO-56 PM ET was computed using estimated
vapor pressure deficit from maximum 共Tmax兲 and minimum
共Tmin兲 temperature to examine the errors that may be produced in
case of missing vapor pressure deficit. According to Allen
et al. 共1998兲, saturated vapor pressure 共es兲 can be estimated as
follows:
 Table 2. Minimum, Maximum, Mean and Standard Deviation 共␴兲 of the Average Daily ET for the Nine Sites
ET0 ET0c ETPT
共mm day−1兲 共mm day−1兲 共mm day−1兲
Site Minimum Maximum Mean ␴ Minimum Maximum Mean ␴ Minimum Maximum Mean ␴
Alma 1.10 5.55 3.21 1.25 1.39 5.80 3.59 1.22 0.84 5.90 3.16 1.52
Attapuglus 1.20 5.25 3.17 1.18 1.61 5.63 3.67 1.17 0.91 5.72 3.27 1.50
Blairsville 0.72 4.84 2.70 1.26 1.13 5.42 3.17 1.29 0.53 5.87 2.92 1.69
Griffin 1.14 6.02 3.33 1.36 1.41 6.15 3.56 1.33 0.68 6.29 3.20 1.69
Midville 1.19 5.95 3.39 1.39 1.30 6.05 3.61 1.37 0.77 6.37 3.28 1.71
Plains 1.14 5.80 3.30 1.31 1.47 5.90 3.60 1.28 0.79 6.41 3.24 1.64
Rome 0.70 5.17 2.69 1.29 1.02 5.77 3.25 1.38 0.49 5.93 2.92 1.70
Savannah 0.91 5.31 2.94 1.28 1.30 5.78 3.44 1.30 0.86 6.39 3.38 1.66
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Watkinsville 1.03 5.13 3.02 1.21 1.29 5.58 3.37 1.26 0.59 5.65 2.91 1.58

es = 0.5 *
e0共Tmax兲 + e0共Tmin兲 共3兲 ea = e0共Tmin兲 共4兲

where e0 共Tmax兲 and e0 共Tmin兲⫽saturated vapor pressure at maxi- which assumes that dew temperature equals minimum tempera-
mum and minimum temperatures, respectively. The actual vapor ture in humid regions. The function to calculate saturation vapor
pressure 共ea兲 can be obtained as follows: pressure at a particular temperature 共T兲 is

Fig. 3. Average daily ET calculated with FAO-56 PM with calculated vapor pressure deficit and Priestley-Taylor versus average daily ET
calculated with FAO-56 PM with measured vapor pressure deficit for the different sites

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 Table 3. Statistical Analysis of the Average Daily ET for the Nine Sites using vapor pressure deficit calculated from daily maximum and
RMSE minimum temperature will be referred to as ET0c.
Site ET b r2 d 共mm day−1兲
Alma ETPT 1.01 0.95 0.98 0.35 Statistical Analysis
ET0c 1.10 0.97 0.97 0.40 Different statistical measures were used to evaluate the differ-
Attapulgus ETPT 1.06 0.95 0.98 0.40 ences between PT and FAO-56 PM. These included root mean
ET0c 1.14 0.96 0.96 0.52 square error 共RMSE兲, regression analysis, index of agreement
Blairsville ETPT 1.12 0.95 0.97 0.53 共d兲, and summary statistics, namely minimum, maximum, mean,
ET0c 1.15 0.97 0.96 0.49 and standard deviation. The RMSE and d can be computed as
Griffin ETPT 1.00 0.94 0.98 0.40 共Willmott 1982兲

冋 册
ET0c 1.05 0.98 0.99 0.28
N 0.5
Midville ETPT 1.00 0.98 0.98 0.43
ET0c 1.05 0.94 0.99 0.27 RMSE = N −1
兺 共Pi − Oi兲 2
共6兲
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i=1
Plains ETPT 1.02 0.94 0.98 0.40
ET0c 1.08 0.98 0.98 0.33

冤 冥
Rome ETPT 1.12 0.96 0.97 0.49 N

ET0c 1.18 0.98 0.95 0.58 兺

i=1
共Pi − Oi兲2
Savannah ETPT 1.17 0.98 0.96 0.59
d=1− N , 0ⱕdⱕ1 共7兲
ET0c 1.14 0.97 0.96 0.51
Watkinsville ETPT 1.01 0.92 0.97 0.45 兺
i=1
共兩Pi⬘兩 + 兩Oi⬘兩兲 2

ET0c 1.10 0.98 0.98 0.39

Note: b⫽slope of the zero-intercept regression line; r2⫽correlation where N⫽number of cases; O is observed and P is predicted ET;
coefficient for this line; d⫽index of agreement; and RMSE⫽root-mean- Pi⬘ = Pi − Ō and Oi⬘ = Oi − Ō; and Ō⫽mean of the observed values.
square error. There is no higher bound on RMSE and it ranges from 0 to
infinity. However, the lower the value for RMSE, the better the

e0共T兲 = 0.6108 exp 冋 17.27T

T + 237.3
册 共5兲
where e0⫽vapor pressure 共kPa兲 and T⫽temperature 共°C兲.
For consistency throughout the manuscript, the PT ET will be
referred to as ETPT, the FAO-56 PM ET using measured vapor
pressure deficit will be referred to as ET0, and the FAO-56 PM ET
agreement. A d of 1 means a perfect agreement whereas a d value
of 0 means a poor agreement 共Willmott 1984; Legates and Mc-
Cabe 1999兲. The d and RMSE are useful in comparing the per-
formance of diverse models. The d could be more useful in this
regard when more than one data set, more than one year, or more
than one site are used because it is normalized with the mean of
the observed data, whereas RMSE is not.

Fig. 4. Average monthly ET calculated with FAO-56 PM with measured vapor pressure deficit, FAO-56 PM with calculated vapor pressure
deficit, and Priestley-Taylor for all the sites

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Fig. 5. Difference of total ET for the warm season between ET calculated with FAO-56 PM with calculated vapor pressure deficit and ET
calculated with FAO-56 PM with measured vapor pressure deficit and between ET calculated with Priestley-Taylor and ET
calculated with FAO-56 PM with measured vapor pressure deficit for all the sites

Results
Daily
The minimum daily ETPT was lower than the minimum daily ET0,
which was lower than the minimum daily ET0c, whereas the
maximum daily ETPT was higher than the maximum daily ET0
and ET0c which was higher than the maximum daily ET0 for all
the sites 共Table 2兲. The mean daily ETPT was closer to the mean
daily ET0 than the mean daily ET0c for all the sites. The lower
minimum daily ETPT than the minimum daily ET0 could be par-
tially contributed to the fact that PM equation usually overesti-
mates reference ET during the winter 共Jensen et al. 1990兲. The
seasonal variation in wind runs between summer and winter and
also results in dissimilarity in the differences between ETPT and
ET0 during the summer 共maximum ET兲 and winter 共minimum
ET兲 共Pereira 2004兲. Similar differences between daily ET0 and
daily ET0c due to vapor-pressure deficit calculation methods were
reported 共Yoder et al. 2005a兲. The mean daily ETPT was within
4% of the mean daily ET0 for all sites but Blairsville and Rome,
where the mean daily ETPT was within 8% of the mean daily ET0
and Savannah, where the mean daily ETPT was within 15% of the
mean daily ET0. It was noticeable that the mean daily ET0 for
Blairsville, Rome, and Savannah was less than 3 mm day−1,
whereas for the other sites it was greater than 3 mm day−1. The
relative difference between the mean daily ET0c and ET0 ranged
from 6% in Midville to 21% in Rome. The standard deviation of
daily ETPT was 21–34% higher than the standard deviation of
daily ET0, whereas the standard deviation of daily ET0c was
within 7% of the standard deviation of daily ET0.
Differences between PT and ET0 were more evident during the
winter and summer months than during the spring and fall
months, when ET0 ranged from 3 to 5 mm day−1 共Fig. 3兲. PT
underestimated daily ET during the winter for all sites but Blairs-
ville 共mountainous area兲, Rome 共close to the mountainous area兲,
and Savannah 共coastal area兲, where ETPT was in good agreement
with ET0. During the summer, ETPT was close to ET0 with a slight
overestimation for six sites and high overestimation for Blairs-
ville, Rome, and Savannah. Although ET0c followed the same
pattern of ET0, it consistently overestimated ET. Daily ET0 and
ET0c had similar fluctuation patterns throughout the year at the
different sites. It was evident that when PT underestimated daily
ET during the winter, it did not deviate from ET0 significantly
during the summer and when it was in good agreement during the
winter, it overestimated during the summer.
The slope of the zero-intercept regression line between ETPT
and ET0 ranged from 1.00 for Griffin and Midville to 1.17 for
Savannah 共Table 3兲. The slope between ETPT and ET0 was only
slightly but statistically different from 1.00 for Alma, Plains, and
Watkinsville. For Blairsville and Rome the slope between ETPT
and ET0 was high but not as high as Savannah. The slope between
ETPT and ET0 in Attapulgus, located in the southwestern part of
the state, was in between the central area, i.e., Griffin and Mid-
ville and the mountainous area, i.e., Blairsville and Rome. The
slope of the zero-intercept regression line between ET0c and ET0
was higher than the slope between ETPT and ET0 for all sites but
Savannah and it ranged from 1.05 for Griffin and Midville to 1.18
for Rome. These results demonstrated that the average perfor-
mance of PT showed a strong spatial variability from one location
to another, with the highest overestimation in the coastal area,
second highest in the mountainous area, and third in the south-
west area. On average, PT performed best in the central region of
the state. The ET0c performance varied also from one location to
another and, on average, ET0c overestimated ET more than ETPT.
The correlation coefficient 共r2兲 of the zero-intercept regression
was high for ET0c and ETPT, with higher values for ET0c for most
sites.
According to the index of agreement 共d兲, ETPT performed best
for Alma, Attapulgus, Griffin, Midville, and Plains and worst for
Savannah, whereas ET0c performed best for Griffin and Plains
and worst for Rome 共Table 3兲. Also, ETPT preformed better than

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 ET0c for Alma, Attapulgus, Blairsville, and Rome, ET0c pre-
formed better than ETPT for Griffin, Midville, and Watkinsville,
while they had the same d value for Plains and Savannah. Al-
though the d statistics confirmed the conclusion drawn from other
statistics that ET0c did well in the central region of the state and
worst in the coastal and mountainous areas, it did not help in
identifying whether to use ET0c or ETPT in case ET0 is not avail-
able. There was, in general, a good agreement between d and
RMSE, except for Blairsville. The highest RMSE was found for
Blairsville, Rome, and Savannah for ETPT and ET0c, suggesting
that most of the improvement of using ET0 for Georgia would be
for the coastal and mountainous areas.
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Monthly
The average monthly ETPT rate was lower than ET0 for all the
cold season months, i.e., January–March and October–December,
for six locations, namely Alma, Attapulgus, Griffin, Midville,
Plains, and Watkinsville 共Fig. 4兲. For Blairsville and Rome, the
average monthly ETPT rate was lower than ET0 for all the cold
season months except October. For Savannah, the average
monthly ETPT rate was lower than ET0 for only January and De-
cember. For Alma and Midville, the average monthly ETPt rate
was lower than ET0 for all the cold season months and for April
and May, whereas for Blairsville, Griffin, Plains, and Watkins-
ville, the average monthly ETPT rate was lower than ET0 for all
the cold season months and for April only. These results demon-
strated that ETPT underestimated the average monthly ET for at
least six months for all the sites, except for Rome for five months
and for Savannah for two months. The average monthly ET0c rate
was greater than ET0 throughout the year for all the sites. The
average monthly ETPT rate was greater than ET0c for at least one
month of the warm season months, i.e., April–September for all
the sites. For Watkinsville the average monthly ETPT rate was
greater than ET0c for one month of the warm season months, for
Alma it was for two months, for Attapulgus, Griffin, Midville,
Plains, and Rome it was for three months, for Blairsville it was
for four months, and for Savannah it was for five months.
Cumulative
The cumulative difference between ETPT and ET0 and between
ET0c and ET0 for the warm season months, i.e., April–September,
are shown in Fig. 5. For all sites, except Blairsville and Savannah,
the cumulative difference between ETPT and ET0 was less than
between ET0c and ET0. For five sites, the cumulative difference
between ETPT and ET0 was less than 50 mm, whereas it was
75 mm for the southwest site, i.e., Attapulgus, more than 100 mm
for the mountainous sites Blairsville and Rome, and about
150 mm for the coastal site Savannah. The relative absolute dif-
ference between cumulative ETPT and ET0 for the warm season
months ranged from 4 to 19.5%, whereas the relative absolute
difference between cumulative ET0c and ET0 for the warm season
months ranged from 4.6 to 16.7%.
Summary and Conclusions
The increase of irrigation requirements and irrigated land in Geor-
gia and other southeastern states has expanded the need for more
accurate calculations of evapotranspiration. The Priestley-Taylor
equation has been used operationally, but recent studies in the
southeastern humid climate found that PT gave mixed results
JOURNAL OF IRRIGATION AND DRAINAGE ENGINEERING © ASCE / MARCH/APRIL 2007 / 181
J. Irrig. Drain Eng. 2007.133:175-182.
when compared with FAO-56 PM and that it was less accurate
than FAO-56 PM when both were evaluated against measured ET.
The goal of this study was to examine the differences in the
performance of PT and FAO-56 PM in Georgia and to determine
the improvements that can be achieved by replacing PT with
FAO-56 PM. The results indicated that ETPT underestimated the
daily ET during the winter in the central and southwestern areas
and overestimated the daily ET during the summer in the coastal
and mountainous areas. On the other hand, ET0c consistently
overestimated the daily ET for all sites throughout the year. For
all the winter months, i.e., January through March and October
through December, ETPT underestimated the monthly ET for the
central and southwestern areas. In the mountainous area, ETPT
underestimated the monthly ET for the winter months, except
for October, whereas for the coastal area it only underestimated
for two winter months, i.e., December and January. For the
warm season months, i.e., April–September, ETPT overestimated
the monthly ET for some months for all the sites, but more
evidently in the coastal and mountainous areas. Similar to the
daily ET, ET0c consistently overestimated the monthly ET for all
sites. For the warm season, ETPT slightly overestimated the cu-
mulative ET for the central and southwestern areas, moderately
for the mountainous area, and severely for the coastal area. In the
central and southwestern areas, the cumulative difference between
ETPT and ET0 for the warm season was less than between ET0c
and ET0, whereas it was the opposite for the coastal and moun-
tainous areas. The results confirmed that FAO-56 PM is a better
choice for reference ET calculation in the southeastern humid
climate because ETPT can be significantly different from ET0,
especially in the coastal and mountainous areas. It is anticipated
that the use of FAO-56 PM will standardize the ET calculation
and improve irrigation efficiency for the southeastern humid cli-
mate region.
Acknowledgments
This work was partially supported by State and Federal funds
allocated to Georgia Agricultural Experiment Stations Hatch
Project No. GEO01654 and a special grant from the U.S. Depart-
ment of Agriculture-CSREES.
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