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Evaluation of Variable-Infiltration Capacity Model and MODIS-Terra Satellite-

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Article  in  Journal of Irrigation and Drainage Engineering · August 2017

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Evaluation of Variable Infiltration Capacity

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 Evaluation of Variable-Infiltration Capacity Model
and MODIS-Terra Satellite-Derived Grid-Scale
Evapotranspiration Estimates in a River Basin
with Tropical Monsoon-Type Climatology
Downloaded from ascelibrary.org by University of California, San Diego on 05/31/17. Copyright ASCE. For personal use only; all rights reserved.

Ankur Srivastava 1; Bhabagrahi Sahoo 2; Narendra Singh Raghuwanshi 3; and Rajendra Singh 4

Abstract: With the limited availability of meteorological variables in many remote areas, estimation of evapotranspiration (ET) at different
spatiotemporal scales for efficient irrigation water management and hydrometeorological studies is becoming a challenging task. Hence, in
this study, indirect ET estimation methods, such as moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer (MODIS) satellite-based remote-sensing
techniques and the water-budget approach built into the semidistributed variable infiltration capacity (VIC-3L) land-surface model are evalu-
ated using the Penman-Monteith (PM) equation approach suggested in the literature together with a crop coefficient approach. To answer the
research question of whether regional or local controls of a river basin with tropical monsoon-type climatology affect the accuracy of the VIC
and MODIS-based ET estimates, these methodologies are applied in the Kangsabati River Basin in eastern India at 25 × 25 km resolutions
attributed with dominant paddy land uses. The results reveal that the VIC-estimated ET values are reasonably matched with the PM-based ET
estimates with the Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency (NSE) of 54.14–71.94%; however, the corresponding MODIS-ET values are highly underesti-
mated with a periodic shift that may be attributed to the cloud cover and leaf shadowing effects. To enhance the field applicability of the
satellite-based MODIS-ET products, these estimates are standardized by using a genetic-algorithm-based transformation that improves the
NSE from −390.83 to 99.57%. Hence, this study reveals that there is the need of a regional-scale standardization of the MODIS-ET products
using the PM or lysimeter data or possible modification of the MOD16A2 algorithm built-into the MODIS for generalization. Conversely,
the satisfactory grid-scale ET estimates by the VIC model show that this model could be reliably used for the world’s river basins; however,
at smaller temporal scales, the estimates could be slightly inconsistent. DOI: 10.1061/(ASCE)IR.1943-4774.0001199. © 2017 American
Society of Civil Engineers.
Author keywords: Crop coefficient; Evapotranspiration; Food and agriculture organization (FAO)-56 Penman-Monteith (PM);
Genetic algorithm; Moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer (MODIS); Variable infiltration capacity (VIC-3L).

Introduction necessity of taking decisions on sectoral water distributions, irriga-

Evapotranspiration (ET) plays a vital role in the global water cycle,
which, in turn, affects the availability of freshwater resources, irri-
gation water management, crop production, and the climate feed-
back mechanism. Because ET makes the largest contribution in the
hydrological water balance, it is necessary to accurately measure/
quantify it under varied data-availability conditions. Despite the
1
Research Scholar, Dept. of Civil Engineering, Univ. of Newcastle,
Callaghan, NSW 2308, Australia; formerly, Master’s Student, Dept. of
Agricultural and Food Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Kharag-
pur, Kharagpur, West Bengal 721302, India. E-mail: ankursrivastava117@
gmail.com
2
Assistant Professor, School of Water Resources, Indian Institute of
Technology Kharagpur, Kharagpur, West Bengal 721302, India (corre-
sponding author). E-mail: bsahoo2003@yahoo.com
3
Professor, Dept. of Agricultural and Food Engineering, Indian Institute
of Technology Kharagpur, Kharagpur, West Bengal 721302, India. E-mail:
nsr@agfe.iitkgp.ernet.in
4
Professor, Dept. of Agricultural and Food Engineering, Indian Institute
of Technology Kharagpur, Kharagpur, West Bengal 721302, India. E-mail:
rsingh@agfe.iitkgp.ernet.in
Note. This manuscript was submitted on October 7, 2016; approved on
February 8, 2017; published online on May 30, 2017. Discussion period
open until October 30, 2017; separate discussions must be submitted
for individual papers. This paper is part of the Journal of Irrigation
and Drainage Engineering, © ASCE, ISSN 0733-9437.
tion scheduling, groundwater recharge, and reservoir management
at both the spatial and temporal scales, in situ measurement of ET is
still a difficult task (Sheffield and Wood 2008).
Generally, ET is estimated as the land use and land cover
(LULC)-specific crop coefficient times the reference evapotranspi-
ration (ET o ), which is computed by considering the 0.12-m average
height of the standard grass surface with surface resistance and
albedo of 70.0 s=m and 0.23, respectively, as given by Allen et al.
(1989). Given the wide application of ET o in ET estimation, several
methods for determining ET o have been developed and applied
over the years (Bandyopadhyay et al. 2012; Sahoo et al. 2012).
The ET o estimation models available in the literature may be
broadly classified as (1) fully physically-based combination models
that account for mass and energy conservation principles; (2) semi-
physically based models that deal with either mass or energy
conservation; and (3) black-box models based on artificial neural
networks, empirical relationships, and fuzzy and genetic algorithms
(Kumar et al. 2002, 2008; George et al. 2002; Sahoo et al. 2012;
Sahoo 2013; Adamala et al. 2014). The Food and Agriculture
Organization of the United Nations (FAO)’s suggested approach of
the FAO-56 Penman-Monteith (PM) model is recommended as the
standard model world-wide for estimating ET o and for evaluating
other models by the ASCE-Evapotranspiration in Irrigation and
Hydrology Committee, International Commission for Irrigation
Drainage (ICID), and FAO (Allen et al. 1994; ASCE-EWRI 2005).

© ASCE 04017028-1 J. Irrig. Drain Eng.

J. Irrig. Drain Eng., 2017, 143(8): -1--1

 However, in many regions, the application of the FAO-56 PM
approach is limited because of the lack of required weather data.
Hence, under meteorological-data-deficient conditions, many re-
searchers emphasized use of indirect ET estimation methods of sat-
ellite products and land-surface model’s water-budget approach
embedded with the meteorological forcings.
Remote-sensing-based ET models have been used for estimat-
ing crop water use at field to regional scales (Ray and Dadhwal
2001; Bastiaanssen et al. 2005; Allen 2007; Gontia and Tiwari
2010). Similarly, the basin-scale ET can be estimated using the
coupled FAO-PM-normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI)
(Zhang et al. 2010; Mu et al. 2011) and FAO-PM land-surface tem-
Downloaded from ascelibrary.org by University of California, San Diego on 05/31/17. Copyright ASCE. For personal use only; all rights reserved.
perature (LST) models. However, such methodologies are mostly
useful for limited time periods owing to cloud cover issues during
the rainy season. The satellite products of Landsat or Advanced
Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER)
provide field-scale estimates of ET at 30–100 m resolutions (Allen
et al. 2011); however, with low temporal resolution of 16 days
to 1 month. Hence, such satellite products are less useful for agri-
cultural water management, which requires still a finer temporal
resolution of approximately 7–10 days. The moderate resolution
imaging spectroradiometer (MODIS) on board the Terra and Aqua
satellites provide reliable ET estimates at multiple spatial and
temporal scales (Guerschman et al. 2009; Anderson et al. 2011;
Vinukollu et al. 2011; Senay et al. 2013).
The accuracy of ET derived from remote-sensing data sources
varies over space and time with an uncertainty of 15–30% (Mu et al.
2007; Senay et al. 2008), which may go up to 50% of the total mean
annual ET values for the large-scale estimates (Glenn et al. 2010).
Hence, the evaluation of coarse-resolution ET data has been an on-
going concern. Similarly, the validated MODIS-derived ET prod-
ucts reveal that the MOD16 (NTSG 2015) algorithm performs
the best at forest sites and poor at the sites in arid and polar climates
(Kim et al. 2012); also, it has the drawback of not exhibiting
variations for double-cropping systems. However, these validation
studies are either restricted by space or time or do not consider lon-
ger time periods, varied agroecosystems, and larger areas. Further-
more, there are limited evaluations of the ET estimated from the
MODIS NDVI, MODIS enhanced vegetation index (EVI), and
MODIS LST products in comparison with the traditional water-
balance approach (Senay et al. 2011). The MOD16 and Land-
Surface Analysis Satellite Application Facility Meteosat Second
Generation (LSA-SAF MSG) ET products perform the best for
the sites located in temperate and fully humid climates, whereas
they underestimate the ET for sites located in a semiarid climate
(Hu et al. 2015). MOD16 ET is overestimated for forested areas
as a result of not taking account of the leaf shadowing effect
and also underestimates poorly vegetated areas (Jang et al. 2013;
Velpuri et al. 2013; Ramoelo et al. 2014; Trambauer et al. 2014).
Furthermore, MOD16 ET is highly underestimated when it is com-
pared with the eddy covariance flux towers (Autovino et al. 2016).
Recent approaches being used for determining ET at the basin-
scale either involve the use of land-surface hydrologic models
forced with the weather data or the remote-sensing-based fully
coupled land–atmosphere models. Land-surface models (LSMs)
are considered key elements of integrated hydrological models that
partition the hydrological fluxes into runoff, base flow, soil mois-
ture, and ET (e.g., Jaksa and Sridhar 2015). The soil and water as-
sessment tool (SWAT) model and other LSMs lump land-use and
soil characteristics in each grid cell without considering the subgrid
scale variability of soil moisture and LULC, which may result in
more bias in the ET estimates when these LSMs are evaluated using
the FAO-56 PM method or lysimeter data. Conversely, the VIC-3L
model framework could be advantageous over the other LSMs as
© ASCE 04017028-2
J. Irrig. Drain Eng., 2017, 143(8): -1--1
it accounts for the subgrid scale variability of vegetation, soil mois-
ture, and soil types accounting for both the Hortonian and sat-
uration excess runoff generation mechanisms; hence, it has the
potential to estimate the ET more accurately.
The preceding review of earlier studies reveals that grid-scale
MODIS-ET products in tropical regions have not been evaluated
with any physically-based land-surface model, considering ET
as a hydrological process component, nor using the standard
FAO-56 PM and crop-coefficient-based method. The accuracy of
MODIS-ET products needs to be evaluated as it has been reported
that these products do not perform well in wet climates (e.g., Ruhoff
et al. 2013). To address these research gaps, the present study
focuses on (1) testing the accuracy of the ET estimates by the VIC
model and satellite-based MODIS-ET products under dominant
paddy land-use conditions; and (2) standardizing the MODIS-
derived ET estimates by using the genetic algorithm (GA)-based
error updating approach, considering the FAO-56 PM-derived ET o
times lysimeter-derived crop coefficients as the benchmark.
Hence, this study indirectly estimates the grid-scale ET using
the water-budgeting approach of the VIC-3L model and MODIS-
Terra satellite product; which are evaluated using the FAO-56 PM-
equation-based ET estimates in a tropical monsoon-type river basin,
considering the observed station-specific (in situ) meteorological
and LULC data. The VIC model is chosen herein instead of other
LSMs as this is the most scale-appropriate distributed model
for regional-scale rainfall-runoff modeling. The available satel-
lite-based products are the global ET estimates, which may become
altered because of the presence of local or regional controls, such as
paddy land uses in the basin with ponded water conditions through-
out the crop period. Hence, the MODIS-derived ET products are
bias corrected using the GA at 8-daily time-scales using the bench-
mark ET estimates to address the issue of regional control on the
MODIS-ET products.
Methodology
ET is estimated in this study using three approaches: (1) the water-
balance approach of the VIC model, in which ET is obtained as one
hydrological process component while simulating the catchment
runoff; (2) the satellite-based ET products of MODIS, extracted
using a Python-based algorithm; and (3) the FAO-56 Penman-
Monteith equation utilizing the meteorological and LULC data
of the river basin.
VIC-Derived ET Estimation
The VIC-3L is a semidistributed macroscale model used for a
grid-based discretization of the basin that operates in both water-
balance and energy-balance modes. This study uses the water-
balance mode of the VIC-3L model that considers the formulations
of Liang et al. (1994) for partitioning the grid-scale ET into the
canopy-layer evaporation (Ec ), transpiration from vegetation (Et ),
and soil evaporation (Es ) accounting for the subgrid-scale land-use
fractions as
X
N
ET ¼ Ci · ðEc;i þ Et;i Þ þ CNþ1 · Es ð1Þ
i¼1
where Ci = vegetation fractional coverage for the ith vegetation
tile in the grid; CNþ1 = bare soil fraction in the grid; i ¼
1,2; 3; : : : ; N þ 1 denote the number of LULCs; and the (N þ 1)th
subgrid is the bare soil; such that
J. Irrig. Drain Eng.
 X
N þ1 0–10 cm, 10–30 cm, and 30–100 cm for the top, bottom, and deep
Ci ¼ 1 ð2Þ layers, respectively. The vegetation parameter file is generated from
i¼1 the land data assimilation systems (LDAS) (NASA 2015). For
estimating ET from each soil layer, the temperature forcings are
The water is evaporated when it falls on the canopy; then, the obtained from Sheffield et al. (2006), and wind-speed data are ob-
grid-scale canopy evaporation is given by tained from the National Centre for Environmental Prediction and
 2=3   National Centre for Atmospheric Research (2004) data sets. The
Pi aw
Ec ¼ ET o ð3Þ grid-scale meteorological forcings of precipitation are obtained from
Pim aw þ a0
the India Meteorological Department (IMD), Pune (Rajeevan et al.
where Pi = variable canopy interception (mm); Pim = amount of 2006; Pai et al. 2015). All these meteorological forcings and LULC
maximum water the canopy can intercept (mm) [=0.2 leaf area in- are used in the Penman-Monteith equation built into the VIC model
framework for ET estimation.
Downloaded from ascelibrary.org by University of California, San Diego on 05/31/17. Copyright ASCE. For personal use only; all rights reserved.

dex (LAI)] (Dickinson 1984); a0 = architectural resistance (s=m)

assigned for each grid for each vegetation tile in the vegetation frac- The model is calibrated both for the upper Kangsabati River
tion file; aw = aerodynamic resistance (s=m); and ET o = reference Basin at the inflow point of the Kangsabati reservoir and the lower
evapotranspiration estimated by the FAO-56 PM method. Kangsabati River Basin at Mohanpur using the observed daily
Subsequently, the transpiration from vegetation is estimated as streamflow data for the period of 2001–2006 minimizing the root-
(Blondin 1991) mean square error (RMSE) between the model-generated and the
observed streamflows, which is the commonly used approach for
 2=3  
Pi aw evaluating the VIC model. Similarly, the model is validated for
Et ¼ 1 − ET o ð4Þ the period of 2008–2010. For this, the VIC model parameters are
Pim aw þ a0 þ ac
varied manually in their prescribed ranges as mentioned in Table 1
where ac = minimum canopy resistance (s=m). and the corresponding RMSE values are estimated. The minimum
When the surface soil is saturated as a result of rainfall or irri- RMSE value gives the best combination of model parameters. The
gation, the evaporation occurs from the top thin layer at a potential Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency (NSE) (Nash and Sutcliffe 1970), coeffi-
rate. However, when the top soil layer is not saturated, the soil cient of determination (r2 ), and RMSE are used as the model
evaporation rate (Es ) is calculated using the Arno model formu- performance evaluation measures.
lation (Franchini and Pacciani 1991) using the concept of the
Xianjiang Model (Zhao et al. 1980), encompassing subgrid-scale
distribution of infiltration capacity (io ) as ET Estimation Using the FAO-56 Penman-Monteith
Equation
Z Z 1 
FS io The FAO-56 PM equation being used for estimating the reference
Es ¼ Ep dF þ 1=bi 
dF ð5Þ
0 FS im ½1 − ð1 − FÞ evapotranspiration is given as (Allen et al. 1998)

where Fs = fraction of the bare soil that is saturated; im = maximum 0.408ΔðRn − GÞ þ γ T hr37
þ273 u2 ½e ðT hr Þð1 − RhÞ
o
infiltration capacity of soil (mm); and io = corresponding point ET o ¼ ð8Þ
infiltration capacity given by Δ þ γð1 þ 0.34u2 Þ

io ¼ im ½1 − ð1 − AÞ1=bi  ð6Þ
im ¼ ð1 þ bi Þ · θS · jdj ð7Þ
where A = fraction of area for which the infiltration capacity is less
than the potential infiltration rate im ; bi = infiltration shape param-
eter; θs = soil porosity; and d = soil depth (m).
The VIC-3L model is applied to the Kangsabati River Basin
(India) in which the whole basin is discretized into 20 grids of
0.25 × 0.25° resolution. For ET estimation, the VIC model uses
the meteorological data of precipitation, minimum and maximum
air temperature, relative humidity (Kimball et al. 1997), solar radi-
ation, and wind speed. As the preliminary estimate, the three soil
layer depths in the VIC-3L model conceptualization are set as
where Rn = net solar radiation at the reference grass surface
(MJ m−2 h−1 ); G = soil heat flux density (MJ m−2 h−1 ); T hr = mean
hourly air temperature (°C); Δ = saturation slope of vapor pressure
curve at T hr (kPa °C−1 ); eo ðT hr Þ = saturation vapor pressure at air
temperature T hr (kPa); u2 = average hourly wind speed at a 2-m
height (m s−1 ); Rh = relative humidity; and γ = psychrometric con-
stant (kPa °C−1 ). Subsequently, the grid-scale ET is estimated by
P
K A
ET ¼ P ci i · ET o ð9Þ
Ai
where Ai = area of the ith LULC in each grid; and K ci = weighted
crop coefficient of the ith LULC depending on the plant growth
stage during the growing season.

Table 1. List of Calibrated VIC-3L Model Parameters for the Upper and Lower Kangsabati River Basins
Prescribed Calibrated value Calibrated value
Parameters Description range (upper basin) (lower basin)
binf Variable infiltration curve parameter 0–0.4 0.25 0.19
Ds Fraction of Dsmax where nonlinear base flow begins 0–1 0.7 0.9
Dsmax (mm=day) Maximum velocity of base flow 0–30 24 30
Ws Fraction of maximum soil moisture where nonlinear base flow occurs 0–1 0.7 0.5
d1 (m) Thickness of first (top thin) soil moisture layer — 0.1 0.1
d2 (m) Thickness of second soil moisture layer — 0.2 0.2
d3 (m) Thickness of third soil moisture layer — 0.9 0.7

© ASCE 04017028-3 J. Irrig. Drain Eng.

J. Irrig. Drain Eng., 2017, 143(8): -1--1

 MODIS-Derived ET Estimation
Terrestrial ET is the combination of evaporation from moist
and wet soils, the sublimation of water vapor from ice and snow,
canopy evaporation, and transpiration from vegetation. The original
MODIS-ET algorithm (Mu et al. 2007) is based on the Penman-
Monteith method, which was modified into the MODIS16 algo-
rithm as (Mu et al. 2011)
LE AE ðdesat =dTÞ þ ρCp ðesat − eÞ= ra
ET ¼ ¼ · ET p ð10Þ
λ λ ½ðdesat =dTÞ þ γð1þrs =ra Þ
where LE = latent heat flux; λ ¼ ð2.501 − 0.002361T n Þ × 106 ;
Downloaded from ascelibrary.org by University of California, San Diego on 05/31/17. Copyright ASCE. For personal use only; all rights reserved.
T n = air temperature at the nth 30-min observation of each day;
ET p = potential evapotranspiration; AE = available energy parti-
tioned between sensible heat, latent heat, and soil heat fluxes on
land surface; dðesat Þ=dT = slope of the curve relating saturated
water vapor pressure (esat ) to temperature (T); e = variable vapor
pressure; ρ = air density; Cp = specific heat capacity of air; ra =
aerodynamic resistance; rs = surface resistance; and γ = psycho-
metric constant given by Maidment (1993)
C p Pa M d
γ¼ ð11Þ
λM w
where Md and M w = molecular masses of dry air and wet air,
respectively; and Pa = atmospheric pressure.
The surface resistance (rs ) is an effective resistance to evapora-
tion from the land surface and transpiration from the plant canopy.
The MODIS global evapotranspiration product MOD16 is the first
regular 1 × 1 km land-surface ET data set for the global vegetated
land areas at 8-daily, monthly, and annual intervals (Mu et al. 2007,
2011). The output variables of the MOD16 model provide 8-daily,
monthly, and annual ET, latent heat flux (LE), ET p , potential latent
heat flux, and quality control (ET_QC). The MODIS ET product
of MOD16A2, as used herein, has a spatial resolution of 1 km
and temporal resolution of 8 days. The MOD16A2 algorithm com-
putes ET as the sum of the evaporations from the wet soil and the
intercepted canopy precipitation; and the nighttime ET using the
vegetation cover fraction, stomatal and aerodynamic conductances,
etc. Subsequently, the total daily evapotranspiration is estimated as
(Mu et al. 2011)
ET ¼ Ewc þ T dc þ Es ð12Þ
ET p ¼ Ewc þ T pdc þ Ews þ Eps ð13Þ
where ET = daily ET; Ewc = evaporation from wet canopy surface;
T dc = transpiration from dry canopy surface; Es = soil evaporation;
ET p = potential daily ET; T pdc = potential transpiration from dry
canopy surface; Ews = evaporation from wet soil fraction; and Eps =
potential soil evaporation. The soil evaporations are estimated as a
function of soil heat fluxes (G) during day and night. More details
about the MODIS-based ET estimation algorithm have been given
by Mu et al. (2011).
Because the MOD16A2 products have sinusoidal projections
which are in hierarchical data format (hdf), these products cannot
be used directly to obtain the ET values. Hence, in this study, a
Python code is developed to extract the bulk amount of data from
MOD16A2 product with minimum computational time that inter-
links ArcGIS with this product.
Standardization of MODIS-ET Using Genetic Algorithm
Because the MODIS-derived ET estimates are generally not free
from bias, these products are standardized using the FAO-56
PM-based ET estimates as
© ASCE 04017028-4
J. Irrig. Drain Eng., 2017, 143(8): -1--1
^ M;jΔt ¼ ET M;jΔt þ ε^ jΔt
ET ð14Þ
ε^ jΔt ¼ aðET M;jΔt − ET PM;jΔt Þc þ bCosðβ:jΔt þ ϕÞ þ ψ ð15Þ
where ET ^ M;jΔt = standardized MODIS-derived ET at (jΔt) time
step (mm=day); ET M;jΔt = raw MODIS-derived ET at (jΔt) time
step (mm=day); ε^ jΔt = predicted bias at (jΔt) time step (mm=day);
ET PM;jΔt = FAO-56 PM-derived ET estimates at (jΔt) time step
(mm=day); Δt = revisit period of MODIS-Terra satellite (= 8 days);
ϕ = phase difference (day); and a, b, c, β, and Ψ are the fitting
constants. The six parameters a, b, c, β, ϕ, and Ψ are evaluated by
using the GA by minimizing the mean-square error between
^ M;jΔt and ET M;jΔt .
ET
The genetic algorithm is a probabilistic optimization method
based on evolutionary theory. There are three major stages in
evolution from one generation to another: selection of strings,
crossover of strings, and random mutation of the selected strings
to produce the new generation. The GA model uses the 16-bit
chromosome length-specific elitist evolution algorithm, in which
the evolution gets aborted when the objective function of minimi-
zation of mean-squared error between the MODIS-ET and FAO-56
PM-ET does not change after 11,000 generations. The elitist evo-
lution algorithm uses the best diversity operators of crossover rate,
mutation rate, and generation gap of 0.9, 0.03, and 0.1, respectively
(e.g., Swain and Sahoo 2015, 2017), chosen using the sensitivity
analysis for obtaining the least objective function. To compare
the accuracy levels and to standardize the ET estimates of the VIC
model and MODIS-derived ET products, the FAO-56 PM method
is used as the benchmark. The various statistical indicators selected
for model calibration and validation are NSE, r2 , and RMSE.
Study Area and Data Preparation
The Kangsabati River Basin (Fig. 1) was selected as the study area
to evaluate all the ET estimation methods. This basin is located in
the Indian state of West Bengal in between 86°00′ and 87°40′ E
longitudes and 22°20′ and 24°40′ N latitudes, having a geographical
area of 5,796 km2 . The surface elevation ranges from 11 to 656 m
above mean sea level. Paddy is the major crop grown in the cul-
tivable land throughout the year in the three seasons of kharif
(rainy), rabi (winter), and summer, and acts as the prominent local
control for ET loss. This river basin with the tropical-monsoon
type climatology receives an average annual rainfall of approxi-
mately 1,400 mm (averaged from 1991 to 2005), wherein
approimately 80% of the normal rainfall occurs from June to
October.
The Kangsabati reservoir project is situated at the junction of the
Kangsabati and Kumari Rivers with the establishment of two dams
in 1965 and 1974, respectively. The Kangsabati reservoir is located
at 22°56′ N; 86°47′ E; the drainage outlet of the whole basin at
Mohanpur gauging site is located at 22°22′ N; 87°20′ E. The dams
also have flood regimes to mitigate the flooding problems in the
lower reaches, remarkably altering the natural flow regimes of these
rivers. The basin has been traditionally considered a drought-prone
basin characterized with erratic rainfall, high summer temperature,
high evapotranspiration rates, and low water-holding capacity of
the lateritic soil. The daily rainfalls and daily river stages at the
Mohanpur outlet for the 2001–2010 period are collected from the
India Meteorological Department (IMD), Pune and Central Water
Commission (CWC), Asansol, respectively. Subsequently, these
river stages are converted into daily discharges using the given
rating curve. The daily maximum and minimum air temperature
J. Irrig. Drain Eng.
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Fig. 1. Index map of the Kangsabati River Basin showing 20 rainfall grids of resolution 0.25° × 0.25° and five weather stations

data are collected from the IMD, Kolkata. For estimating the
grid-specific ET o values using the FAO-56 PM method, all the nec-
essary meteorological variables are collected from the five stations
of Purulia (Grid 3), Bankura (Grid 8), Jhargram (Grid 17), Kharag-
pur (Grid 18), and Mohanpur (Grid 19) (Fig. 1).
A plot-scale lysimeter study is conducted in the experimental
plots of Agriculture and Food Engineering Department, Indian
Institute of Technology Kharagpur (23°32′ N; 87°31′ E) during
the kharif (monsoon), rabi (winter), and summer seasons of 2015–
2016. Four numbers of open-bottom and two numbers of closed-
bottom nonweighing lysimeters with/without paddy crops, having
dimensions of 1.25 × 1.25 × 1 m, are used. The combination of
volumetric water balances in the open-bottom and closed-bottom
lysimeters are used to determine the daily crop evapotranspiration
(ET c ). Subsequently, the daily crop coefficients are estimated by
dividing ET c by the FAO-56 PM-derived ET o for each of the three

Fig. 2. Reproduction of observed daily discharge time series (m3 =s) by the VIC-3L model for the upper Kangsabati River Basin during (a) calibration;
(b) validation

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Fig. 3. Reproduction of observed monthly discharge time series (m3 =s) by the VIC-3L model for the upper Kangsabati River Basin during
(a) calibration; (b) validation

Fig. 4. Reproduction of the observed daily discharge time series (m3 =s) by the VIC-3L model for the lower Kangsabati River Basin during
(a) calibration; (b) validation

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 crop seasons and averaged to represent for each crop-growth stage
as recommended by the FAO (Allen et al. 1998). The estimated
values of crop coefficients (K c ) for rice during the four crop-growth
stages of initial, crop development, reproductive and maturity in
kharif season are 1.05, 1.25, 1.01, and 0.89 and the corresponding
values in rabi season are 0.92, 1.02, 1.08, and 0.88; in summer
season, these are 1.05, 1.2, 1.15, and 0.8, respectively.
The soil map and soil texture information of the study area are
collected from the National Bureau of Soil Survey and Land-Use
Planning (NBSSLUP), Kolkata, which are converted into soil codes
followed by the NBSSLUP and FAO for their use in the VIC-3L
model setup. Each grid cell is assigned with the soil texture identity
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(ID) for its use in the VIC model. The soil is classified mainly based
on the percentage of available sand, silt, and clay into five texture
groups, namely, coarse loamy, loamy, fine loamy, fine, and very
fine. The fraction of each grid covering particular soil is provided
into the input file of the VIC model.
The Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) digital eleva-
tion model (DEM) of 90 × 90 m resolution is the primary input of
the VIC model. The MOD16A2-Terra evapotranspiration data at
1-km spatial and 8-days temporal resolutions were used. The two
scenes of the Landsat 7 Enhanced Thematic Mapper (ETM+) were
downloaded from the global land cover facility (GLCF 2010). The
Kangsabati River Basin is covered by two tiles of Landsat images
having the path/row combination of 139/44 and 140/44. Both the
Landsat images having high spectral range of 0.45–2.35 μm and
resolution of 30 m provide the detailed features of the land surface,
which are necessary for mesoscale characterization of different
LULC in the Kangsabati River Basin. The satellite image is clas-
sified into seven LULC classes (dense forest, open forest, agricul-
ture, fallow land, barren land/sand, water, and settlement) and the
class names are assigned with the help of survey data.
Fig. 5. Reproduction of the observed monthly discharge time series (m3 =s) by the VIC-3L model for the lower Kangsabati River Basin during
(a) calibration; (b) validation
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Results and Discussion
Estimation of VIC-Derived ET
For estimating the ET using the VIC model, a two-stage process is
followed: First, the VIC hydrological model is set up for both the
upper and lower Kangsabati River Basins through calibration and
validation to best reproduce the observed streamflow time series for
the periods 2001–2006 and 2008–2010, respectively. Second, the
grid-scale ET is estimated using the in-built water-budget approach
of the VIC model as one of the hydrological process components.
Because the VIC-3L model does not have a reservoir module, and
the considered river basin has a reservoir towards the upstream, the
model setup is considered by dividing the whole basin into two
zones. The upper basin has the outlet at the reservoir inflow point,
and the lower basin is considered from the reservoir outlet to
the basin outlet at Mohanpur. For the VIC-3L model setup, seven
model parameters are to be calibrated as they could not be deter-
mined well based on the available soil information. These seven
model parameters are the depths of the upper and two lower soil
layers (di , i ¼ 1, 2, and 3); the exponent (binf ) of the VIC-3L soil
moisture capacity curve, describing the subgrid scale spatial vari-
ability of the soil moisture capacity; and the three subsurface flow
parameters (i.e., Dsmax , Ds , and W s ), where Dsmax is the maximum
velocity of base flow, Ds is the fraction of Dsmax , and W s is the
fraction of maximum soil moisture. The calibrated parameters of
the VIC model for the best NSE are illustrated in Table 1.
The reproduction of daily and monthly-scale discharge time
series for the upper Kangsabati River Basin with relation to
the observed values are illustrated in Figs. 2 and 3, respectively.
The error measures shown in these figures reveals that, at daily
scale, the VIC-3L model is well calibrated with NSE = 80.45%,
J. Irrig. Drain Eng.
 r2 ¼ 0.81, and RMSE ¼ 55.21 m3 =s; during validation, this
model performs with NSE ¼ 79.47%, r2 ¼ 0.78, and RMSE ¼
32.17 m3 =s. However, the scatter plot for validation indicates that
the VIC-3L model underestimates the streamflow slightly in the
range >700 m3 =s, which could be attributable to overestimation
of the catchment losses by the model during the high flow period.
Conversely, the validation results [Fig. 2(b)] reveal that the dis-
charge time series at the daily scale is well-reproduced by the
VIC-3L model. Similarly, at the monthly scale, as envisaged from
Fig. 3(a), there is almost negligible underestimation with overall
improved error measures of NSE ¼ 95.23%, r2 ¼ 0.94, and
RMSE ¼ 137.28 m3 =s. During validation, the VIC-3L model sim-
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ulates the monthly streamflows very well with slight underestima-
tion having NSE ¼ 92%, r2 ¼ 0.91, and RMSE ¼ 109.04 m3 =s.
Hence, Figs. 2 and 3 indicate that the VIC-3L model simulates
daily and monthly flows reasonably well except slightly underpre-
diction of high flows.
The reproduction of daily and monthly-scale discharge time
series for the lower Kangsabati River basin with relation to the ob-
served values are illustrated in Figs. 4 and 5, respectively. The error
Fig. 6. VIC-simulated annual water-balance components (including ET) in the Kangsabati River Basin: (a) grid-scale variability (temporally-
averaged); (b) temporal variability (spatially-averaged)
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measures shown in these figures reveal that, at daily-scale, the
VIC-3L model is calibrated with NSE = 70.40%, r2 ¼ 0.74,
and RMSE ¼ 64 m3 =s; during validation, this model performs
with NSE ¼ 80.21%, r2 ¼ 0.82, and RMSE ¼ 43.16 m3 =s.
However, the scatter plot for calibration indicates that the VIC-3L
model underestimates the streamflow at the flow range of
600–1,400 m3 =s, which could result from overestimation of the
catchment losses by the model during the high flows. Conversely,
during validation [Fig. 4(b)], the results reveal that the discharge
time series at the daily scale is comparatively well reproduced
by the VIC-3L model. Similarly, at the monthly scale, as envisaged
from Fig. 5(a), there is underestimation of the discharge time
series at the flow ranges of 7,000–12,000 m3 =s, with overall
improved error measures of NSE ¼ 93.12%, r2 ¼ 0.92, and
RMSE ¼ 154.75 m3 =s.
During validation, the VIC-3L model simulates the monthly
streamflows very well with NSE ¼ 92.43%, r2 ¼ 0.95, and
RMSE ¼ 103.04 m3 =s. Hence, it is surmised that the VIC-3L
model simulates the low flows very well in the upper and lower
basins with an underprediction of high flows at both daily and
J. Irrig. Drain Eng.
 monthly scales. Such underprediction of the observed streamflows
may be attributed to the overprediction of model simulated grid-
scale losses, such as base flow and ET. When the VIC model is
run at the daily time scale, the daily-scale meteorological forcings
result in the daily-scale overland and channel-flow transport proc-
esses. However, because of the time-delay effect in the soil layers,
the base flow transport process may result in at a temporal scale
larger than 1 day. Hence, the base flow contribution should practi-
cally be less than that obtained in this study; which possibly needs
improvement in the model structure when run at the daily scale.
Moreover, during rainy days, the cloud cover could significantly
reduce ET, which is not exclusively accounted for in the VIC model
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likely observed in the Grids 17, 18, and 19, respectively, because
large areas of these grids are covered with vegetation. This grid has
the maximum areal extent of cropland (70%) and mixed forest
(16%), which could be responsible for large amount of ET loss
[Fig. 6(a)]. The lowest amount of annual ET (51%) is observed
in Grid 1 because this grid is characterized as the drought-prone
area with the least soil-moisture holding capacity and vegetation
cover. The annual runoff accounts for the highest (46% of the an-
nual precipitation) from Grid 1 as it is at higher elevation with fine
clay-loam soil, whereas it is the lowest in Grid 20 (27% of annual
precipitation) because it consists of the maximum grid area of crop-
land. Fig. 6(b) shows the basin-average estimates of annual ET

framework. Hence, to maximize the streamflow prediction effi-
ciency, the VIC model adjusts the water-budget components among
themselves. These results are more biased at the daily scale than the
monthly scale for the high runoff values.
As envisaged from Fig. 6, the VIC-simulated annual ET ac-
counts for the highest (69% of the annual precipitation) for the Grid
20 as the annual precipitation is also the highest in this grid. Evapo-
transpiration of 67, 69, and 68% of the annual precipitation is more
(2001–2010), in which it is observed that the year 2007 accounts
for the highest ET (i.e., 69% of the annual precipitation) and the
year 2010 for the lowest ET (i.e., 48% of the annual precipitation).
The reason to this highest ET may be attributed to the maximum
rainfall occurring during 2010, by which more water is extracted
from the deeper soil layers by the vegetation to keep stomata open
with zero water stress (Zhang et al. 2001); conversely, the lowest
ET in 2007 corresponds to the minimum rainfall with water stress

(a)

(b)
Fig. 7. (a) Eight-daily and (b) monthly time series of evapotranspiration (ET) estimates by the FAO-56 PM (observed), MODIS-raw (bias uncor-
rected), MODIS-standardized (bias corrected), and VIC-3L methods averaged over Grids 3, 8, 17, 18, and 19 during 2001–2005

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 condition. The estimated annual average ET for the basin is
909 mm with the standard deviation of 219 mm. During 2001–
2010, the VIC-simulated annual average (standard deviation) of
basin-scale precipitation, ET, runoff, and base flow account for ap-
proximately 1,445 (260), 909 (219), 483 (57), and 51 (1)
mm, respectively; meanwhile, ET, runoff, and base flow account
for approximately 63.19, 33.45, and 3.56% of precipitation.
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Standardization of MODIS-Derived ET Products
The MODIS16A2 product is used for estimation of the raw
(i.e., without bias correction) actual evapotranspiration in the se-
lected 13 grids of the study area with paddy land use. It can be
envisaged from Fig. 7 that the raw MODIS-derived ET systemati-
cally underpredicted the FAO-56 PM-ET values, with some phase
difference at 8-daily time scales. Consequently, bias correction is

Fig. 8. Comparison of (a) MODIS-raw (bias uncorrected) and (b) MODIS-standardized (bias corrected) ET estimates with the benchmark FAO-56
PM-ET during calibration (2001–2003) and validation (2004–2005) periods at Grids 3, 8, 17, 18, and 19 of the Kangsabati River Basin

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J. Irrig. Drain Eng., 2017, 143(8): -1--1

 carried out for the raw MODIS-ET values using the GA ap-
proach. The optimized fitting parameters in Eq. (15) for 8-daily
ET standardization are found to be a ¼ 1.52614402770996,
b ¼ 0.893527448177337, c ¼ 0.363817751407623, β¼
30.3193168640136, Ф ¼ −65.6875457763671 days, and Ψ ¼
−1.85836470127105 mm=8-days. As evidenced from Figs. 7(a
and b), MODIS-standardized ET predicts well both on 8-daily and
monthly basis for all the five grids having meteorological gauging
stations (Fig. 1) during 2001–2005. The corresponding calibration
scatter plots for all these five grids, where the FAO-56 PM-ET
estimates are only available, are shown in Fig. 8(a). The corre-
sponding error measures of the calibrated 8-daily ET values are
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resulted in NSE ¼ 98.02%; r2 ¼ 0.98, and RMSE ¼ 1.29 mm=
8-days, as shown in Fig. 8(b). Similarly, Fig. 8(b) depicts the
validation scatter plots for the aforementioned five grids, which
reveals that the validated 8-daily ET values are reproduced in the
ranges of NSE ¼ 97.86–99.57%, r2 ¼ 0.98–0.99, and RMSE ¼
0.92–1.29 mm=8-days.
Hence, these results reveal that the MODIS-ET values are sig-
nificantly improved with bias-correction model for their field use.
Conversely, as seen in Fig. 7(b), the MODIS-raw ET estimates per-
form reasonably well in the dry months of March, April, May, and
June in comparison with the FAO-56 PM method’s underestimation
of 19–22%, which may not be acceptable during the wet months
(July, August, September, and October) having an underestimation
of 26–85%. Conversely, the MODIS-standardized ET estimates
perform very well with a deviation of only 0.31–1.9% during the
corresponding dry months, which is 0.13–3.21% during the wet
months. Ruhoff et al. (2013) also showed that the MOD16 algo-
rithm performs more accurately during dry seasons compared to wet
seasons. Hence, the periodic shift in the MODIS-ET may be attrib-
uted to the cloud cover and leaf shadowing effects in the vegetative
areas, which are not accounted for in the MOD16 algorithm
Fig. 9. Reproduction of the FAO-56 PM-derived ET (mm/8-day) by the VIC-3L model during 2001–2005 at five grids of the Kangsabati River basin
(VIC-3L is calibrated for the period 2001–2006 and comparison is made for 2001–2005 because the FAO-56 PM-based ET could only be estimated
for this period)
© ASCE 04017028-11
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Intercomparison of VIC-3L, MODIS, and FAO-56
PM-Derived ET Estimates
The ET estimates computed by the VIC-3L, MODIS, and FAO-56
PM methods are intercompared by spatially averaging the grid-based
ET estimates in the five grids for the period of 5 years (2001–2005)
at 8-daily and monthly scales, as shown in Figs. 7(a and b), respec-
tively. The MODIS (raw) products highly underpredict the
observed (FAO-56 PM) ET estimates with NSE ¼ −390.83%,
r2 ¼ 0.001, and RMSE ¼ 23.72 mm=8-days as illustrated in
Fig. 8(a) (Grid 3). At the annual scale, the ET values estimated
for the five grids by the FAO-56 PM, MODIS (raw), MODIS
(standardized), and VIC-3L model are estimated to be 1,240.07,
627.93, 1,233.99, and 1,046.23 mm, respectively. Because of the
high performance of the standardized MODIS-derived ET formu-
lation, this model is used as the benchmark model to simulate the
observed ET in the other 15 grids of the basin, because no weather
station is established in these meteorologically ungauged grids for
direct application of the FAO-56 PM method.
The reproduction of the benchmark ET values by the VIC-3L
model in Grids 3, 8, 17, 18, and 19 for the period of 2001–2005 is
illustrated in Fig. 9 and the corresponding error measures are also
shown therein with the ranges of NSE ¼ 72.22–85.22%; r2 ¼
0.74–0.85, and RMSE ¼ 3.39–4.65 mm=8-days. Hence, within the
VIC-3L calibration period, the VIC-estimated ET values are very
well reproduced in these five grids when compared with the FAO-
56 PM estimates.
Because the FAO-56 PM-ET could not be estimated for all the
grids of the basin during 2001–2010 because of the unavailability
of meteorological data, the standardized MODIS-ET is consid-
ered as the benchmark data for evaluating the VIC-3L based
ET estimates in all the 13 grids of the basin with paddy land use.
Fig. 10 shows the scatter plots of the ET estimates by the MODIS
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Fig. 10. Reproduction of the standardized MODIS-ET (mm=8-day) by the VIC-3L model in all the 13 grids of the basin during the calibration period
(2001–2005)

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Fig. 11. Reproduction of the standardized MODIS-ET (in mm=8-day) by the VIC-3L model in all the 13 grids of the basin during the validation
period (2008–2010)

© ASCE 04017028-13 J. Irrig. Drain Eng.

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 (standardized) and VIC-3L models; the performance criteria are
also depicted therein. It can be surmised from Fig. 10 that during
the calibration phase, the ranges of error measures by the VIC-3L
model for all the grids are NSE ¼ 56.57–76.94%, r2 ¼ 0.61–0.85,
and RMSE ¼ 3.51–5.25 mm=8-days. Similarly, Fig. 11 illustrates
the scatter plots of the standardized MODIS-ET and VIC-ET in
all the 13 grids of the basin for the validation period (2008–
2010) of the VIC-3L model. It can be envisaged from Fig. 11 that
the ranges of error measures by the VIC-3L model for all the
grids are NSE ¼ 45.42–80.29%, r2 ¼ 0.57–0.86, and RMSE ¼
2.88–5.59 mm=8-days. Hence, overall, the VIC-3L estimates the
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the basin is relatively higher because of the presence of more irri-
gated croplands than that of the upper part.
Summary and Conclusions
The spatiotemporal variability of evapotranspiration depends on
the topological controls (i.e., elevation, latitude, longitude, and
LULC) of the basin and the meteorological controls (i.e., temper-
ature, relative humidity, wind speed, incoming, and reflected solar
radiations). However, given the limited meteorological data avail-
ability both at the field and basin scales owing to limited networks

ET reasonably well during both calibration and validation phases.

The box and whisker plots in Fig. 12 show the descriptive sta-
tistics of the VIC-3L model with respect to MODIS (standardized)
considering the outliers. Fig. 12 reveals that the median (interquar-
tile ranges) of the VIC-ET estimates for the calibration period are
with NSE = 63.77 (60.60–74.09)%, r2 ¼ 0.70 (0.63–0.77), and
RMSE ¼ 4.41 (3.82–4.72) mm/8-days. Similarly, during the vali-
dation phase, the corresponding median (interquartile ranges) are
with NSE = 65.13 (54.14–71.94)%, r2 ¼ 0.71 (0.59–0.74), and
RMSE ¼ 4.15 (3.78–4.51) mm/8-days. Hence, it can be surmised
from this analysis that the VIC-3L model could reasonably be used
for grid-scale ET estimation when the FAO-56 PM ET products are
not available. Similarly, the MODIS-ET products could be used
reliably after bias correction only. The grid-scale annual variability
of the MODIS-ET estimates for the whole basin as illustrated in
Fig. 13 reveals that, generally, the ET loss from the lower part of
of eddy covariance flux towers or lysimeters, a number of direct
and indirect ET estimation methods have been developed world-
wide, which are basically data-specific or region-specific. Among
all these models, the FAO-56 PM-based ET estimation method is
recognized as the standard model worldwide. In such a case, the
MODIS-Terra satellite based ET products which use the satellite-
derived energy fluxes and leaf area index in the Penman-Monteith
method to calculate the grid-scale 8-daily ET, is considered as an
indirect ET estimation method.
Similarly, the VIC-3L model, which uses the FAO-56 PM
method in its model structure, indirectly computes the grid-scale
ET using the water-balance approach while simulating the basin-
scale runoff. The consideration of subgrid scale variability of soil
moisture and LULC by the VIC-3L model makes it special over the
other LSMs existing in the literature. These two indirect ET esti-
mation methods are evaluated to reproduce the grid-scale ET of the

Fig. 12. Performance evaluation indices of NSE, r2 , and RMSE by the VIC-3L model for 13 grids of the Kangsabati River Basin with respect to
standardized MODIS-ET during calibration period (2001–2006) and validation period (2008–2010) of the VIC-3L model

Fig. 13. Spatial variation of annual-scale MODIS ET during 2001–2010

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 Kangsabati River Basin with the tropical-monsoon-type climatol-
ogy using the benchmark FAO-56 PM method with the LULC-
specific crop coefficients. The VIC-3L model is calibrated and
validated for the upper and lower Kangsabati River Basins in order
to derive ET from the water-balance components. In this study,
8-daily ET is estimated using the VIC-3L, MODIS (raw), and
MODIS (standardized), and FAO-56 PM methods at a spatial
resolution of 25 × 25 km.
The results reveal that the raw MODIS-ET values are highly
underestimated during the study period with some phase difference.
After standardization of these ET estimates by the genetic algo-
rithm, the performance of the MODIS-derived ET improved signifi-
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cantly with the NSE from aproximately −390.83 to 98.02%. The
systematic underprediction with some phase difference of the raw
MODIS-ET products may be attributed to the underestimation of
energy fluxes by the MODIS16A2 algorithm for the study area.
Conversely, although the VIC-3L could estimate the observed
ET products reasonably well during the model calibration period,
the performance during the validation period is not consistent, spe-
cifically during the high-flow periods at the daily time scale.
However, at the monthly time scale, the VIC-ET estimates are
satisfactory. This phenomenon may be attributed to the incapabil-
ity of the VIC-model to efficiently estimate the grid-scale base
flow components, because the time of travel of the base flow con-
tribution from a daily-scale rainfall-runoff event would be much
lower. In contrast, the VIC model adjusts the hydrological process
components of ET, base flow, and soil-moisture storage to best
reproduce the runoff. The VIC-estimated annual ET, runoff, and
base-flow estimates of the tropical basin under study account for
approximately 63.19, 33.45, and 3.56% of precipitation. The inter-
comparison study reveals that, at the annual scale, the ET values
estimated from the five grids of the basin by the FAO-56 PM,
MODIS (raw), MODIS (standardized), and VIC-3L model are
1,240.07, 627.93, 1,233.99, and 1,046.23 mm, respectively.
Conclusively, the standardized MODIS satellite-based ET prod-
ucts and the VIC-3L-based ET products could be satisfactorily used
for regional and grid-scale variability of evapotranspiration estima-
tion when the field-scale measured data are not available. These ET
products could be further downscaled at subgrid scales for their use
in field-scale irrigation water management.
Acknowledgments
This work is supported by Information Technology Research
Academy (ITRA), Government of India under ITRA-Water Grant
ITRA/15(69)/WATER/M2M/01.
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