Agricultural Water Management 226 (2019) 105805

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Agricultural Water Management

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/agwat

Estimating evapotranspiration using METRIC model and Landsat data for T

better understandings of regional hydrology in the western Urmia Lake
Basin
Masahiro Tasumi1
Department of Forest and Environmental Sciences, University of Miyazaki, 1-1, Gakuen Kibanadai-Nishi, Miyazaki 889-2192, Japan

A R T I C LE I N FO A B S T R A C T

Keywords: This study estimates the evapotranspiration (ET) from the western part of Urmia Lake Basin, Iran, to provide
Evapotranspiration quality spatio-temporal evapotranspiration information for use in achieving regional sustainable water man-
Urmia Lake Basin agement. A “mapping evapotranspiration with internalized calibration” (METRIC) ET estimation model was
METRIC adopted to estimate monthly ET for the period between 2014–2016 using Landsat 8 satellite imagery. Several
Remote sensing
refinements are made to adjust the model to the local environment. The refinements include estimating eva-
Energy balance
poration from the saline lake, correction of the underestimation of city surface temperature through the mod-
ification of thermal emissivity, as well as modifications of minor assumptions applied in METRIC. The estimation
results for ET obtained using METRIC were compared with independent estimation of ET using the FAO-56
approach in order to assess the estimation accuracy. The comparison showed good correlation between the two
types of estimation results for irrigated agriculture, implying successful estimation of ET in this region. ET
estimated in non-irrigated bare soil fields was prone to overestimation. The novelty of this study lies in the fact
that this is the first ET data for this basin with 100 m spatio-temporal resolution and accuracy information.
Therefore, the estimation procedure and results are expected to contribute to a better understanding of the
regional hydrology. This is necessary both for the restoration of Urmia Lake and for achieving sustainable water
management in the region.

1. Introduction hydrology. In closed basins such as Urmia, long-term withdrawal of

Urmia Lake, an endorheic salt lake located in northwestern Iran, is
one of the primary salt lakes in the world. The lake has high saline
content at 217–235 g L−1 (Ghaheri et al., 1999), or up to 300 g L−1
(Farzin et al., 2012). The total surface area of the lake has been reported
as between 4750 and 6100 km2 and its maximum depth is 16 m
(Eimanifar and Mohebbi, 2007). However, Urmia Lake has been
shrinking rapidly because of multiple factors, including climate change
and overuse of water for agriculture (Hassanzadeh et al., 2012). Hence,
better understanding of basin hydrology and management of water
resources have become urgent challenges (Farajzadeh et al., 2014). The
shrinking of the lake is indicative of an imbalance in regional water
supply and use. The Urmia Lake Restoration Program (ULRP) put for-
ward by the Iranian government has been working towards stabilizing
and increasing the lake’s water level by achieving sustainable water
management in the basin.
Evapotranspiration (ET) is one of the key factors in basin-scale
water from the basin, either from the surface or subsurface, is roughly
approximated as precipitation minus ET. Thus, the estimation of ET is
important in determining the accepted level of water use. In recent
years, several ET estimation models based on satellite-based remote
sensing have been developed. Satellite-based ET models provide spatio-
temporal information of ET from fields, regions, and basins; the unique
information generated has led to a new era in agricultural and en-
vironmental water management (Tasumi et al., 2019). There are three
primary types of satellite-based ET estimation approaches: vegetation-
based, land surface temperature-based, and scatterplot/triangle ap-
proaches (Biggs et al., 2016). In a review of satellite-based ET estima-
tion approaches, Losgedaragh and Rahimzadegan (2018) suggest that
the Surface Energy Balance Algorithm for Land (SEBAL) (Bastiaanssen
et al., 1998a, b), Mapping Evapotranspiration at high Resolution and
with Internalized Calibration (METRIC) (Allen et al., 2007a, b), and
Surface Energy Balance System (SEBS) (Su, 2002) are the most popular
methods. All the three popular models are categorized as land surface

E-mail address: tasumi@cc.miyazaki-u.ac.jp.

1
JICA Survey Team member for the Data Collection Survey on Improvement of Hydrological Cycle Model of Lake Urmia Basin.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agwat.2019.105805
Received 14 January 2019; Received in revised form 12 September 2019; Accepted 17 September 2019
Available online 03 October 2019
0378-3774/ © 2019 The Author. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/BY/4.0/).
M. Tasumi
temperature-based approaches by Biggs et al. (2016). In this study, we
adopt the METRIC model, which can accurately estimate ET because of
the internal calibration procedure incorporated in the model for irri-
gated agricultural area. The model has been applied in several regions
in the world (e.g., Trezza et al., 2013; Numata et al., 2017; Madugundu
et al., 2017). Losgedaragh and Rahimzadegan (2018) applied the ME-
TRIC model to the region near Tehran in order to estimate evaporation
from fresh water surface. In the context of Urmia Lake basin, Javadian
et al. (2019) applied the METRIC model with MODIS imagery (1 km
thermal resolution) to estimate actual ET in basin-scale. While MODIS-
based ET map provides useful information for large-scale water balance
and hydrology, the coarse spatial resolution prevents quantitative as-
sessment of the ET estimation accuracy.
This study applies the METRIC model using Landsat thermal re-
solution (100 m), to determine ET in the western Urmia Lake Basin with
quantitative information of the estimation accuracy. Two primary
technical issues are addressed in this study. The first is the necessity of
local refinements to the METRIC model. As reported by Allen et al.
(2013), for the example of the terrain problem, the model requires some
local refinements to improve ET estimation. Local refinements are made
through an iterative process during image processing. Thus, this work
also provides a case study of the application of local refinements. An-
other challenge is accuracy assessment of the estimated result. In this
study, the estimated ET is compared with independently estimated ET
values to determine the estimation quality in an area where no ground-
measurement data is available for validation.
2. Materials and methods
2.1. Study area and data used
The study area was the western part of Urmia Lake Basin, which lies
in the coverage of Path 169/Row 34 of Landsat 8 satellite images
(Fig. 1). The study area covers Urmia Lake, the primary irrigated
agricultural area of Urmia, some other minor irrigated agricultural
areas, and a wide rain-fed wheat agriculture or rangelands spread over
the hillside, and mountainous region extending till the western border
of the basin. Urmia City is located at the western part of Urmia Lake.
Fig. 1. Location of study area and landuse.
2
Agricultural Water Management 226 (2019) 105805
Urmia weather station, operated by the Islamic Republic of Iran Me-
teorological Organization (IRIMO), is also located at the western part of
the lake. The weather station is surrounded by irrigated agricultural
areas. Elevation varies from around 1250 m at Urmia Lake to
2000–3000 m above sea level at the western boundaries of the basin.
Average annual temperature at the Urmia station is 11.7 °C (10-year
average over 2007–2016), where the minimum monthly temperature is
in January (-1.9 °C) and the maximum in July (24.4 °C). The average
annual precipitation is 294 mm, where approximately 20–40 mm of
precipitation is expected each month from October to June, while al-
most no precipitation occurs between July and September. The sa-
tellite-observed precipitation distribution indicates that precipitation
increases toward the mountainous regions, with approximately
500–700 mm of annual precipitation expected at the western border of
the basin. Recently, water surface area of the Urmia Lake experienced
significant changes year-on-year (Fig. 1), particularly in the southern
regions of the lake where the lake bed is occasionally exposed during
the summer and fall season. In the period between 2014–2016, 2015
had the minimum and 2016 had the maximum lake surface area, which
agrees with the trend of annual precipitation observed at the Urmia
weather station. The minimum and maximum surface area in August
was 1550 km2 and 2500 km2 in 2015 and 2016, respectively. The lake
surface is much smaller than the values reported by Eimanifar and
Mohebbi (2007) (4750–6100 km2), clearly showing the rapid shrink of
the lake in recent years.
Apples are the most commonly irrigated crop in the study area.
They are typically cultivated with hey crops such as alfalfa planted
underneath the apple trees. With a long period of irrigation compared
to other primary crops in the region, the recent increase in apple cul-
tivation has been considered one of the primary reasons for the
shrinking of the lake. Other primary irrigated crops are grapes, peaches,
wheat, sugar beets, and vegetables. Surface irrigation using surface and
ground water has been the major irrigation method; however, the ap-
plication of drip irrigation has been gradually increased. Rain-fed
wheat fields extend over the hillsides, where chickpeas are occasionally
grown for crop rotation purposes.
This study estimates evapotranspiration in the study area using
Landsat 8 satellite images with a METRIC model for the period between
M. Tasumi
Table 1
Availability of Landsat 8 images for 2014–2016 and their usage in the study.
2014–2016. The primary input data for the model include both short-
wave and thermal observations of Landsat 8 images, a digital elevation
model, and locally measured weather data. Four field visits were con-
ducted in 2017 and 2018. During the field visits, information on agri-
cultural, meteorological, and water management practices were ob-
tained through interviews with local government/organizations and
individual farmers. Table 1 summarizes the Landsat 8 images used in
the study. Images dates highlighted in dark-gray indicate cloud-covered
images that were not usable. The dates highlighted in light-gray in-
dicate winter images, wherein energy balance computations using
METRIC were not feasible owing to snow-cover and/or homogeneous
soil moisture conditions due to precipitation. These winter images were
used only for detecting the snow-covered area. The METRIC model was
applied to all other images. Fortunately, clear-sky images were avail-
able at least once per month between April and November. ASTER
GDEM Version 2 was used as the digital elevation model (DEM).
Weather data measured at the Urmia weather station operated by
IRIMO, obtained via the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Adminis-
tration (NOAA) of the United States, were used as representative
weather data in the study area, after quality control.
2.2. METRIC model
METRIC (Allen et al., 2007a) solves the energy balance for the
moment captured in satellite image acquisition. ET (mm hr−1) is esti-
mated as the residual of the energy balance as:
Rn − G−H
ET= 3600
λρw
−2
where Rn, G, and H (W m ) are the net radiation, soil heat, and sen-
sible heat flux, respectively. λ (J kg-1) is the latent heat of vaporization,
ρw (kg m-3) is the density of water, and the constant 3600 is the con-
version factor from seconds to hours.
Net radiation is computed by analyzing solar radiation estimation
by taking into consideration the atmospheric transmissivity, surface
reflectance, and longwave emission balance using satellite shortwave
and thermal observation data. The equation can be represented as fol-
lows:
Rn = (1−α)R s + εRLd − RLu
where α is surface albedo derived by satellite shortwave observations, ε
is thermal emissivity derived by satellite-observed vegetation index. Rs
(W m−2) is the solar radiation. RLd (W m−2) is the incoming longwave
radiation empirically determined by air transmissivity. RLu (W m−2) is
the outgoing longwave radiation derived by satellite thermal observa-
tion.
Soil heat flux is estimated as a ratio of Rn using surface conditions
such as vegetation and temperature observed by satellite. The estima-
tion of sensible heat flux is key to the METRIC model. Sensible Heat
flux, H, is expressed as:
Agricultural Water Management 226 (2019) 105805
ΔT
H= ρa Cp
rah (3)
where ρa (kg m−3) is the air density, Cp (J kg-1 K-1) is the specific heat
of air at constant pressure, ΔT (K) is the near-surface vertical tem-
perature difference, and rah (s m-1) is the aerodynamic resistance cor-
responding to ΔT.
METRIC takes an iterative approach to analyze ΔT and rah together
and calibrates the model to estimate ET adequately using the in-
formation read from two specific pixels of the image called the “cold
pixel” and “hot pixel”, following the approaches pioneered by SEBAL
(Bastiaanssen et al., 1998a). The ΔT determination process is visualized
in Fig. 2. ET from two specific pixels (i.e., cold and hot pixels) are as-
signed by operators. Then H for these two specific pixels can be derived
using Eq. 1. The combined values of ΔT and rah in Eq. 3 are iteratively
determined for these two pixels, by initially assuming neutral stability
and then updating the air stability condition using Monin–Obukhov
length, for the given wind speed and the surface roughness length. The
relationship between surface temperature and ΔT, analyzed using the
two specific pixels, is applied to the entire image.
The resulting ET at the moment of satellite image is converted to an
index called ETr Fraction (ETrF); ETrF enables the conversion of the
instantaneous ET information to a daily or monthly basis.
ET
ETr F=
ETr (4)
where ETr (mm h−1) is the alfalfa reference evapotranspiration defined
(1) by American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE-EWRI, 2005) and com-
puted from weather data.
Monthly or seasonal ET is estimated by inverting Eq. 4 as ET = ETrF
x ETr using ETrF values interpolated for the days between satellite
images and ETr computed from ground-measured weather data. At least
one clear-sky image per month is recommended for successful ET esti-
mation in irrigated agricultural areas (Allen et al., 2007a).
(2)
Fig. 2. Concept of ΔT determination in METRIC model.
3
M. Tasumi
Fig. 3. Flowchart for the evapotranspiration computation.
2.3. ET estimation procedure
Fig. 3 shows the flowchart for ET estimation in this study. The
METRIC model requires an iterative process to tune the model to the
target area. Preliminary results were evaluated to identify problems in
model application. Solutions for these problems were then derived
through analysis. The procedures for the solution of the problems were
incorporated into the METRIC model as local refinements before ob-
taining the final results. Initially, the METRIC model (Allen et al.,
2007a) was applied to the Landsat images with atmospheric corrections
(Tasumi et al., 2008), terrain corrections for radiation (Allen et al.,
2006), and corrections for aerodynamic processes (Allen et al., 2013).
Minor local refinements included:
(1) Cold pixel selection and value assignment: Cold pixels that provide
information for internal calibration of METRIC were selected from
active fully covered irrigated short crops, when feasible, and ETrF
was assigned as 0.95 instead of the suggested value of 1.05. The 9%
reduction of cold-pixel ETrF from the suggested value corresponds
to the difference in irrigation methods between the study area
(surface irrigation is the dominant) and the southern Idaho, United
States, where the suggested value was developed (center-pivot or
line sprinkler irrigation is the dominant). The total amount of irri-
gation requirements tends to be higher in surface irrigation than in
sprinkler irrigation, primarily due to larger percolation and con-
veyance losses. However, ET from cropping field itself is approxi-
mately 9% lower in surface irrigation than sprinkler, for example of
temperate cereals and root crops (Jägermeyr et al., 2015), because
sprinkler irrigation tends to keep the surface and root-zone wetter,
in addition to the evaporation by interception, which is negligible
in the case of surface irrigation. Further reductions of cold-pixel
ETrF were made for early spring and late fall images, when the
active fully covered irrigated short crops were not easily found, as
recommended by Allen et al. (2007a).
(2) Hot pixel selection and value assignment: On determination of hot
pixel ETrF, the soil water balance model in the FAO-56 manual
(Allen et al., 1998) was applied assuming the soil type as silt-loam
(Zavieh et al., 2018), as recommended by Allen et al. (2007a). As a
minor modification, a simple snow-melting process was in-
corporated in the soil water balance model, assuming that pre-
cipitation on days when air temperature is below zero is snow
(Haddeland et al., 2011; Harder and Pomeroy, 2014). The compu-
tational results of the soil water balance model are shown in Fig. 4.
(3) Determination of surface roughness length: The roughness estima-
tion equation in METRIC is best for bare soil to short-crop surfaces.
4
Agricultural Water Management 226 (2019) 105805
The equation was applied to all surfaces, except for the city and tree
cover (orchard). In this study, the city and tree covered areas were
identified from satellite images, and roughness was separately as-
signed.
(4) Limitations of ΔT in sensible heat estimation: In METRIC, sensible
heat is estimated using Eq. 3, wherein ΔT is determined using two
calibration points: cold and hot pixels. The estimations of ΔT and
sensible heat are stabilized if the surface conditions lie in between
the cold and hot pixel conditions. However, in some pixels with
extreme surface conditions, unrealistically high or low sensible heat
might be computed by the model. To address this issue, the max-
imum and minimum limits for the ΔT estimation procedure were set
to prevent extreme, unrealistic ΔT values in terms of availability of
surface energy.
(5) Evaporation from snow surfaces: Accurate estimation of evapora-
tion from snow surfaces is difficult using METRIC because the snow-
covered condition violates some important assumptions adopted in
METRIC such as that used to estimate ΔT, and METRIC disregards
latent heat of melting in the energy balance computations. As the
evaporation from snow surface is expected to be small, on average
(Kojima, 1984; Kojima et al., 1985), it was approximated as zero in
this study.
In addition to the above-listed refinements, the following two items
were investigated during the study. The solutions are described and
discussed in the Results section.
(6) Evaporation from the lake: The METRIC model is not applicable to
estimating lake evaporation without local calibration (Allen et al.,
2007a). The estimation of evaporation from a lake surface is diffi-
cult because solar radiation penetrates water, water bodies have
large heat capacities, and the advection of heat can easily occur
with water flow. In this study, the empirical evaporation estimation
method for Urmia Lake is investigated through literature reviews.
(7) Evapotranspiration from city areas: Preliminary ET estimation
results indicated a large amount of ET from city areas in the fall season.
However, field surveys indicated that the large ET in city areas in the
fall was overestimated. In this study, the reasons for the overestimation
are investigated and the solution is suggested.
2.4. Accuracy assessment
Validation is one of the most challenging problems in satellite-based
ET estimation researches (Li et al., 2009). Because of factors such as
M. Tasumi
Fig. 4. Observed precipitation and estimated soil evaporation using the soil water balance model in 2016.
advection, the ground measured ET itself can have more than 20%
(measured by eddy covariance) or up to 29% (measured by eddy cov-
ariance) error. Moreover, ground-measured ET typically does not re-
present ET from the area of satellite image pixel. Therefore, large un-
certainties in validation is typically inevitable even if ground-measured
ET data is available. While no actual ground-measured ET data were
available in the study area, this study attempts to assess the ET esti-
mation accuracy via comparisons with ET estimated using the FAO-56
(Allen et al., 1998), which was proposed by Stancalie et al. (2010) in
their work. FAO-56 is a widely accepted method for field ET estimation
(Pereira et al., 2015). However, FAO-56 can only estimate ET for ade-
quately-watered, healthy cropping fields, unless detailed data (i.e.,
quantity and timing of precipitation and irrigation) of the water ap-
plication in the target field is available. In addition, the comparison
must be made in large, homogeneous fields (more than 200 m by 200 m,
i.e., twice the thermal resolution of Landsat-8). Unfortunately, the ty-
pical field size in the Urmia irrigation area is less than 50 m by 50 m,
and several different types of crops are cultivated. Based on the field
survey, some apples and one grape field were the only irrigated crops
where a large extent of homogeneous cultivation areas could be found
in the study area.
Some non-irrigated bare soil surfaces, located near the weather
station, were another possible locations to estimate ET by FAO-56. For
such bare soil surface, the quantity and the timing of water application
can be assigned as the precipitation data recorded by the weather sta-
tion, which enable FAO-56 to estimate ET. The actual quantity and the
timing of precipitation can deviate from the weather data, if the loca-
tion of bare soil is far from the weather station. In this study, large bare
soil surfaces located within around 15 km from the weather station
were selected. Upon field ET estimation using FAO-56, a single-crop
coefficient (Kc) approach was adopted; Kc values and lengths of crop
development stages were provided in the literature. FAO-56 estimates
ET only from a specific beginning date (typically in spring) to a specific
end date (typically in the fall) of cultivation. To account for inevitable
ET from fields during the remainder of the year (typically in winter),
the Kc of the initial development stage was assigned for apples and Kc
estimated by the soil–water balance model was assigned for grapes
during the period. This follows from the common practice among
farmers in the Urmia region. Rain-fed wheat is also a primary crop in
the study area that has a significant share in the cultivation area.
However, wheat was omitted from comparison for the accuracy as-
sessment because FAO-56 cannot estimate actual ET for the rain-fed
wheat, only with the information available in this study.
5
Agricultural Water Management 226 (2019) 105805
3. Results and discussion
3.1. Local refinements
3.1.1. Evaporation from Urmia Lake
Table 2 summarizes annual lake evaporation and air temperature
data obtained from the literature. Some of the numbers in the table
were obtained from graphs in the source materials. Temperature data
comprise air temperatures either at water surfaces or at nearby weather
stations. Fig. 5 illustrates the plot of data presented in Table 2. In cases
where the climate conditions were not excessively different, the annual
amount of lake evaporation tended to be linear relative to the annual
air temperature (Croley II et al., 1998; Kondo, 2000; Tasumi, 2005)
because higher air temperature causes the lake to use more energy in
evaporation and less energy in sensible heat (Kondo, 2000). According
to Raoult’s law, evaporation from salt water becomes less than eva-
poration from fresh water, if other weather and energy conditions are
constant. However, evaporation from saline lakes tends to be greater
than that from fresh-water lakes in Fig. 5; this could be attributed to the
fact that saline lakes tend to be located in arid and semi-arid regions
that promote evaporation because of low humidity. The two sources for
the Dead Sea reported annual evaporation values that were different by
300 mm yr−1, which might indicate the difficulty and uncertainty in
lake evaporation observation and estimation. Evaporation reported by
Dead Sea (1) is equivalent to evaporation from other saline lakes lo-
cated in much colder regions, which might be an indication of under-
estimation, because temperature is an important factor that controls
annual evaporation.
Evaporation from Urmia Lake has been reported as 1171 mm yr−1
(Jalili et al., 2012), which was derived from a Class-A pan observation
installed near the lake and filled with lake saline water. However,
evaporation from a Class-A pan installed near a lake is known to be
greater than evaporation from the lake surface owing to differences in
humidity conditions, leading to differences on the order of, for example,
20–40% (Jensen et al., 2016). Thus, the reported 1171 mm yr−1 might
be an overestimation. Considering the theoretical relationship between
temperature and evaporation with empirical linearity reported for
fresh-water lakes, and uncertainties available in literature information,
this study suggest Eq. 5 to estimate evaporation from Urmia Lake. The
equation expresses the solid line shown in Fig. 5, which was drawn by
connecting evaporation from Great Salt Lake and the Dead Sea (2),
assuming these two literature values are relatively reliable. The annual
average temperature of Urmia varies from 10.7 °C to 13.1 °C during
2007–2016, and the Eq. 5 is used only for the short temperature range.
Eannual = 34 x Tair, annual + 660 (5)
−1
where Eannual is annual evaporation from Urmia Lake (mm yr ) and
Tair,annual is annual air temperature (°C) at the weather station near the
M. Tasumi Agricultural Water Management 226 (2019) 105805

Mohammed and Tarboton, 2012

Gianniou and Antonopoulos,
Benduhn and Renard, 2004

Yin and Nicholson, 1998

Calder and Neal, 1984

Croley II et al, 1998

Lensky et al., 2005
Jalili et al., 2012

Kondo, 2000
Source

2007
Evaporation (mm yr−1)

Fig. 5. Relationship between lake annual evaporation and annual air tem-
perature from the literature with a suggested evaporation estimation line (bold)
various

various

for saline lakes: circles indicate saline lakes and triangles indicate fresh-water
1171
1193

1220
1500
1000

1551
846

lakes. The two dashed lines indicate the relationships for average Japanese
lakes and for Lake Superior in the literature.
Temperature (oC)

lake.
The equation suggests about 10% lower evaporation from Urmia
various

various
11.7

28.5
24.7
10.0
12.7

25.4

Lake compared to the value reported by Jalili et al. (2012), which might
9.3

explain the difference between pan evaporation and lake evaporation.

1990–2006
1981–1990

1950–2010

1956–1978

Relative to fresh-water lakes, Eq. 5 suggests higher evaporation, espe-

various

various

cially in cold-temperature regions. This is possible because saline lakes

Period

1999

1993
NA

have lower freezing points and shorter ice-cover periods in winter in

cold regions than fresh-water lakes, which promotes evaporation
Water type

compared to fresh-water lakes. A sensitivity analysis for Qinghai Lake

in China indicated that the annual water surface evaporation increases
Fresh

Fresh
Fresh

Fresh
Salt
Salt

Salt
Salt
Salt

by 16% (saline content = 187.5 g L−1) when compared to fresh water

lakes because of the impact of reduction in the freezing point (Momoki,
Pan measurement

Energy balance

Energy balance

Energy balance

1994). While the annual evaporation largely depends on the air tem-
Water balance
Math. Model

perature, monthly trends in lake evaporation are largely affected by the

Literature

Literature

Literature
Method

lake depth (Tasumi, 2005). Shallow lakes such as Urmia Lake are ex-
pected to have monthly evaporation trends similar to pan evaporation
or reference ET (Tasumi, 2005). Accepting this assumption, the esti-
mated annual evaporation suggested in Eq. 5 is distributed to each
month, according to the distribution ratio determined by the long-term
Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Russia,

average month-to-year ratio of ETr in the Urmia Lake (Table 3).

3.1.2. Evapotranspiration from city areas

The overestimation of ET in city areas, especially in the fall season,
was caused by the cold estimated surface temperature at city areas. To
empirically overcome this problem, two types of corrections were made
for city areas. The first correction was to improve thermal emissivity.
METRIC estimates thermal emissivity using a leaf area index that as-
sumes natural and agricultural surfaces rather than cities. Thus, the
Annual lake evaporation and temperature from the literature.

minimum emissivity for the Landsat thermal band was set as 0.97.
However, commercial areas can have much lower emissivity compared
to natural-type surfaces (Roberts et al., 2012), which causes the un-
Tanzania, Uganda, Kenya

derestimation of surface temperature in city areas. In this study, based

Israel, Jordan, Palestine
Israel, Jordan, Palestine

on the analysis of spectral emissivity data by Roberts et al. (2012), 0.93

Afghanistan, Iran

was assigned for emissivity in densely built city areas.

The second correction was made to reduce the impact of shadows on
ET estimation in city areas. Field surveys indicated that building sha-
Greece

Japan

dows cause erroneously cold temperature readings in city areas in the

USA

USA
Iran

fall. The problem is due to the difference in direction between sunlight

and satellite observation. The city temperature would be observed as
much higher if measured from the same direction as the sunlight.
Several Japanese

However, as satellite observation is conducted from the nadir angle, the

Great Salt Lake
Lake Vegoritis

Lake Superior
Lake Victoria
Dead Sea (1)
Dead Sea (2)

satellite “sees” a large portion of shadows cast by buildings. The sha-

Urmia Lake

dowed area is largest in winter, when the sun angle is lowest at the
Aral Sea

Lakes

satellite overpass time. However, the impact of shadows on ET esti-

Lake

mation is largest during fall in Urmia because the surfaces are dry in the
Table 2

fall. The impact of shadows on ET estimation is not obvious in wet

No.

1
2

4
5

6
7

seasons because the surface temperatures of shadowed and sunny

6
M. Tasumi Agricultural Water Management 226 (2019) 105805

Table 3
Ratio of monthly evaporation to annual evaporation for Urmia Lake.
Month 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Total

E ratio 0.02 0.03 0.07 0.09 0.12 0.14 0.15 0.14 0.11 0.07 0.04 0.02 1

acquisition dates during 2014–2016. ETFAO56 for Location #4 could not

Fig. 6. Shadow-covered area in Urmia City when capturing Landsat images.
surfaces do not differ significantly. This problem was empirically solved
by artificially increasing the surface temperature in city areas by
1.0–4.7 °C. The ratio of the increment was determined by analyzing the
shadow-covered area for each satellite image for a typical size and
density of buildings in Urmia City (Fig. 6) and analyzing the expected
temperature difference between shadowed and non-shadowed areas.
3.2. Accuracy assessment
ET for the satellite image acquisition dates were computed through
METRIC model processing applied with local refinements. The monthly
and annual ET were estimated by interpolating ETrF values in between
two satellite image dates. The estimation results were further evaluated
for some sample locations by comparing with independently estimated
ET following the FAO-56 manual (Allen et al., 1998). Seven locations
were selected for accuracy assessment and another eight locations were
selected for additional discussion (Table 4). Fig. 7 shows the estimated
monthly and annual ET maps, with the locations selected for accuracy
assessment. August is a dry season, and thus ET was small in natural
conditions such as rangeland, while a large amount of ET was estimated
in irrigated areas.
3.2.1. Accuracy assessment for satellite image acquisition dates
Fig. 8 shows the comparison between FAO-56 and METRIC-esti-
mated ET (hereafter, ETFAO56 and ETMETRIC) for the satellite image
be estimated for 2014–2015, because the field was not well managed
during the period. Assuming that the difference between ETFAO56 and
ETMETRIC is the estimation error of METRIC, mean bias error (MBE) for
apple, grape, and bare soils were 0.20, 0.16, and 0.36 (mm d−1), re-
spectively, where the positive number indicates over-estimation. The
mean absolute error (MAE) were 0.57, 0.72, and 0.59 (mm d−1), re-
spectively. Root mean square error (RMSE) were 0.73, 0.84, and 0.68
(mm d−1), respectively. The estimation accuracy obtained in this study
for the satellite image acquisition dates was similar to a METRIC ap-
plication for well managed almond field in California (MBE ranges from
-0.32 to 0.37, RMSE ranges from 0.49 to 0.93 mm d−1; He et al., 2017),
and better than for salinity-affected pistachio field (MBE -0.5, RMSE
1.4 mm d−1; Jin et al., 2018).
While the average ET widely varies from bare soil (0.41 mm d−1) to
apple (5.29 mm d−1), MBE, MAE and RMSE tended to be similar among
the three different landuse types, indicating that the error range in
METRIC tends to be constant, not proportional to the amount of ET
occurring. The estimation accuracy was high in wet (i.e., apple) con-
ditions, intermediate in moderate (i.e., grape) conditions, and low in
dry (i.e., bare soil) conditions, if the error is expressed in percentage of
actual ET. RMSE 0.73 (mm d−1) for apple is equivalent to 14% of the
average ET, and it is better than typical uncertainty of ET observation
by eddy covariance, 20% (Wilson et al., 2002; Li et al., 2009). In con-
trast, RMSE 0.68 (mm d−1) for bare soil is equivalent to 166% of the
average ET for bare soil. It should be noted that accurately estimating
tiny ET from dry surface was difficult in this METRIC application.
3.2.2. Accuracy assessment for monthly and annual timescale
Fig. 9 shows the monthly estimated ETMETRIC and ETFAO56 values for
apple, grape, and bare soil. MBE lied between 0.1 to 8.3 mm mo−1,
MAE was between 9.0 to 16.0 mm mo−1, RMSE was between 10.8 to
20.5 mm mo−1. ETMETRIC for the three apple fields, representing wet
agricultural conditions, was in good agreement to ETFAO56 throughout a
year, except some early spring months. A part of the error in early
spring may have been caused by less frequent satellite observations,
given that March is a cloudy season (Table 1). Another possible reason
is that the actual difference of ET from individual field that is not re-
flected in ETFAO56 in this study, accounts for the error in ETMETRIC.
Although farmers in the study area occasionally irrigate apple fields
even during winter for pest management, regular irrigation typically

Table 4
List of sample locations – direction and distance are from the Urmia weather station.
Location # Landuse Direction Distance (km) Water application Purpose

1 Apple North 3 Irrigated accuracy assessment

2 Apple South 27 Irrigated
3 Apple South 52 Irrigated
4 Grape South West 17 Irrigated
5 Bare soil East 3 Rain only
6 Bare soil East 8 Rain only
7 Bare soil South East 16 Rain only
8 Wheat South 25 Rain only supplemental materials for discussion
9 Wheat South West 34 Rain only
10 Wheat NorthWest 40 Rain only
11 Short crops North East 17 Irrigated
12 Short crops South East 20 Irrigated
13 Short crops South East 35 Irrigated
14 City South 13 NA
15 Urmia Lake East 27 NA

7
M. Tasumi
Fig. 7. Estimated monthly ET for August (left) and annual ET (right) in 2016.
starts from April or May, depending on the area and the individual
farmers. Thus, larger variations in soil water content, caused by dif-
ference in field management by farmers, are expected between March
to April, which is not accounted for in ETFAO56 values.
For bare soil surfaces, ETMETRIC was overestimated in the dry season
in summer. The selected bare soil fields received almost no rain from
July to September during 2014–2016, and evaporation is expected to be
very small. Only over-estimation can occur in such conditions, because
there is no room to underestimate ET. Moreover, ETr is high in summer,
because of the rich solar radiation. As shown in Eq. 4, a small error in
ETrF estimated by METRIC can be magnified in terms of the ET for the
period when ETr is high.
In annual integrated ET (Fig. 10), MBE for applies is 2–67 mm yr−1,
61 mm yr−1 for grape, and 29–99 mm yr−1 for bare soils. The samples
of irrigated agriculture had MBE equivalent to less than 10% of ET,
which is regarded as accurate in the context of agricultural water
management. According to farmers, the typical amount of irrigation for
apple plantation in the area is about 1800 mm yr−1. This study shows
Fig. 8. Comparison between FAO-56 and METRIC-estimated ET for the satellite image acquisition dates.
8
Agricultural Water Management 226 (2019) 105805
that about 60% of water entering the field (sum of precipitation and
irrigation) is consumed as ET. On the other hand, ETMETRIC must be
used cautiously to bare soils and rangeland. Although MBE 29–99 mm
yr−1 might be an acceptable range of error in surface energy balance, it
is not negligible if compared to the precipitation (long-term average is
294 mm yr−1). Some uncertainties are inevitable in this accuracy as-
sessment approach. However, similar uncertainties might be inevitable,
even if ground-measured ET data are available.
Fig. 11 shows the METRIC-estimated results for location numbers 8
to 15 in Table 4. The estimated annual ET values from three rain-fed
wheat fields are distributed from 316 to 652 mm yr−1. According to
FAO-56, an adequately watered wheat field in this area requires ap-
proximately 670 mm yr−1 of ET, including the inevitable ET during
non-cultivation season. Thus, the most rain-fed wheat in this area
should have been water-stressed, which is in agreement with actual
conditions confirmed by the field surveys. The water-stress condition
can also be confirmed via the NDVI from satellite observations. Fig. 12
shows the NDVI and ETMETRIC of the satellite images for the three rain-
M. Tasumi Agricultural Water Management 226 (2019) 105805

Fig. 9. Estimated monthly ET with reference values for apples, grapes, and bare soil–no data was available for comparison for grape cultivated areas in 2014 and
2015.

Fig. 10. Estimated annual ET with reference values for apples, grapes, and bare soil.

Fig. 11. Estimated annual ET for rain-fed wheat, irrigated short crops, city centers, and Urmia Lake.

fed wheat fields. Note that dotted lines in the ETMETRIC graphs are to
visually aid the reader; they do not represent the way of interpolation of
ET in-between the satellite image. Strong peak NDVI, implying favor-
able growing of the wheat, were recognized only for years 2014 and
2015 in Location 9, and year 2015 in Location 10. ETMETRIC for these
three cases were 652, 605, and 470 mm yr−1, where, the ETMETRIC for
the two favorable growing years in Location 9 were close to the re-
ference value by FAO-56 for healthy wheat. In Fig. 12, location/year
having low NDVI tend to show low ET, indicating that METRIC “sees”
the water stress condition via the estimated amount of ET.
The estimated ET from irrigated short crops (Loc. #11–13; Fig. 11)
is difficult to evaluate or discuss because of the small field size and the

9
M. Tasumi
Fig. 12. NDVI and ETMETRIC of the satellite image dates for three rain-fed wheat sample fields.
complex crop types and timings. Each of the data shown as Loc. #11–13
contains several different types of short crops with some minor horti-
culture and residential areas. At the least, estimated ET for irrigated
short crops lies in the range between irrigated apple and rain-fed wheat,
which is an expected range of ET for this landuse type. Annual ET from
densely built city centers was estimated as 136 to 192 mm. If the annual
precipitation at Urmia station is representative of the city areas, in case
of 2016, 192 mm out of 321 mm is used in ET and the rest (129 mm) is
drained. The discussion for Urmia Lake surface evaporation was already
presented in the previous section. As a limitation of accuracy assess-
ment, no evaluation was attempted for mountainous regions near the
border of the basin owing to a lack of information about evapo-
transpiration there.
4. Conclusion
This study estimated the ET from the western part of the Urmia Lake
Basin to provide quality information on spatio-temporal ET in the basin
with Landsat resolution. Monthly ET was estimated for a period of three
years, from 2014 to 2016 by applying the METRIC model with several
local refinements. The estimation accuracies were evaluated using in-
dependently estimated ET by FAO-56 method for irrigated apple and
grape fields and for non-irrigated bare-soil land. The RMSE was 0.68 –
0.84 mm d−1 for the satellite image acquisition dates, and 10.8 –
20.5 mm d−1 for monthly estimations. The estimation accuracy was
comparable to other similar applications. The error range in METRIC
tended to be constant for a wide variety of ET amount, and it derived
high relative accuracy for wet apple fields and low relative accuracy for
dry bare soil surfaces. The study area also experienced limited pre-
cipitation during July to September, and evaporation was minimal in
non-irrigated bare soils. In such situations, only over-estimation can
occur, because there is no room to underestimate ET. Thus, the derived
values of 29–99 mm yr−1 tend to be overestimations in bare soil, and
the amount is not negligible when compared to the annual precipita-
tion, 294 mm.
Estimated ET for rain-fed wheat fields was in good agreement with
the evapotranspirative requirement of healthy wheat, for the well-
growing fields, while ET was lower for the fields having weak crops.
This was indicative of the fact that the METRIC model captures the
water stress condition of the crops via ET. Although there are un-
certainties in terms of the accuracy assessment of this approach, the
comparison results indicate successful estimation of ET in this region.
This work provides the first evapotranspiration data for this basin with
this spatio-temporal resolution and accuracy information. Therefore,
the estimation procedure and its results are expected to contribute to a
better understanding of regional hydrology. This is necessary both for
10
Agricultural Water Management 226 (2019) 105805
restoration of Urmia Lake and for achieving sustainable water man-
agement in the region.
Declaration of Competing Interest
None.
Acknowledgements
This study was conducted as a part of the “Data Collection Survey
on Improvement of Hydrological Cycle Model of Lake Urmia Basin”,
Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), and JSPS KAKENHI
Grant Number JP18K05886. The following collaborators helped in this
research by providing information and data and/or on field surveys: Dr.
Behdad Chehrenegar of the Urmia Lake Restoration Program; Mr.
Hitoshi Nagata, Mr. Masanori Suzuki, and Mr. Toshihiro Goto of CTI
Engineering International Co.; and Mr. Mostafa Javadian, Ms. Fatima
Kordi, and Mr. Mohammad Abdoli of the Remote Sensing Research
Center, Sharif University of Technology, Iran.
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