Water Resour Manage (2011) 25:97–111

DOI 10.1007/s11269-010-9689-6

Changes of Pan Evaporation in the West of Iran

Hossein Tabari · Safar Marofi

Received: 20 January 2010 / Accepted: 11 June 2010 /

Published online: 2 July 2010
© Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2010

Abstract Evaporation is an important component of the hydrological cycle and its

change would be of great significance for water resources planning, irrigation control
and agricultural production. The main purpose of this study was to investigate tem-
poral variations in pan evaporation (Epan ) and the associated changes in maximum
(Tmax ), mean (Tmean ) and minimum (Tmin ) air temperatures and precipitation (P)
for 12 stations in Hamedan province in western Iran for the period 1982–2003.
Significant trends were identified using the Mann–Kendall test, the Sen’s slope
estimator and the linear regression. Analysis of the Epan data revealed a significant
increasing trend in 67% of the stations at the 95% and 99% confidence levels.
To put the changes in perspective, the trend in Epan averaged over all 12 stations
was (+)160 mm per decade. Trend analysis of the meteorological variables for
examination of causal mechanisms for Epan changes showed warming trends in Tmax ,
Tmean and Tmin series in almost all the stations, which were significant over half of
the total stations. On the contrary, no significant changes in precipitation were found
approximately at all of the stations. Furthermore, a moderate positive correlation
was observed between Epan and Tmax , Tmean and Tmin , while a inverse correlation
was found between Epan and P data. The results indicated that the study area has
become warmer and drier over the last 22 years, hence the evaporative demands of
the atmosphere and thereby crop water requirements have increased.

Keywords Trend analysis · Temporal variations · Class A pan evaporation ·

Air temperature · Precipitation

H. Tabari (B) · S. Marofi

Department of Irrigation, Faculty of Agriculture, Bu-Ali Sina University, Hamedan, Iran
e-mail: hosseintabari@gmail.com
98 H. Tabari, S. Marofi

1 Introduction

Evaporation (E) is an important component of the hydrological cycle and influences

the availability of water, particularly for agriculture (Burn and Hesch 2007). The
measurement of E is difficult, hence the measurement of potential evaporation is
often used instead (Jovanovic et al. 2008). In applications such as those in ecology,
hydrology, agriculture and engineering, the potential evaporation is taken to be
proportional to the rate at which water evaporates from a pan located at the surface,
known as pan evaporation (Epan ). Pan evaporation has traditionally been used to
represent the evaporative demand of the atmosphere when estimating crop water
requirements (Roderick and Farquhar 2004).
Pan evaporation will increase as the average air temperature near the surface
increases. This expectation is based on an implicit assumption that, as the air temper-
ature increases, everything else is held constant. That is, Epan would increase as the
air at the surface warmed if there were no change in the vapour content of the air and
wind speed were unchanged (Roderick and Farquhar 2004). The mechanisms causing
the observed trends in E are not clearly understood. Although there is widespread
agreement that global temperatures are increasing, there are many meteorological
factors that can result in an increase or a decrease in evaporation (Burn and Hesch
2007).
The majority of the studies conducted in the United States and the former Soviet
Union (Peterson et al. 1995; Lawrimore and Peterson 2000; Golubev et al. 2001;
Hobbins et al. 2004), Australia and New Zealand (Roderick and Farquhar 2002,
2004, 2005; Jovanovic et al. 2008) showed decline in Epan rates in the last decades.
The similar decreasing Epan was also reported in Venezuela (Quintana-Gomez 1997),
Canada (Burn and Hesch 2007) and Puerto Rico (Harmsen et al. 2004). In addition,
the Second Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
(IPCC 1996) described widespread decreases in Epan during the twentieth century
using pan measurements from the former Soviet Union and the United States. In
Asia, Xu et al. (2006) studied the spatial distribution and temporal trend of reference
evapotranspiration (ETo ), Epan and pan coefficient in the Changjiang catchment in
China during 1960–2000. They showed that there was a significant decreasing trend
in both ETo and Epan , which was mainly caused by a significant decrease in the net
total radiation and to a lesser extent by a significant decrease in the wind speed over
the catchment. Besides, no temporal trends were detected for the pan coefficient.
Wang et al. (2007) considered changes of Epan and ETo in the Yangtze River basin
in China from 1961 to 2000. They found that both Epan and ETo decreased during
the summer months contributing most to the total annual reduction. Jhajharia et
al. (2009) analyzed the temporal characteristics of Epan trends under the humid
conditions for 11 sites of northeast India. They concluded decreasing Epan trends
mainly in pre-monsoon and monsoon seasons. The findings of this study suggested
that mainly two parameters i.e. sunshine duration followed by wind speed strongly
influenced Epan changes at various sites from different regions in different seasons.
On the other hand, decreases of Epan have not been universal and increases
of Epan have been reported in many parts of the world. Analysis of evaporation
measurements at Bet Dagan in Israel’s central coastal plain between 1964 and 1998
by Cohen et al. (2002) showed a small but statistically significant increase in screened
Class A Epan , mainly in the dry, summer half of the year. Likewise, no changes were
Changes of Pan Evaporation in the West of Iran 99

found in total open water evaporation or ETo estimated with Penman’s combined
heat balance and aerodynamic equation because the decreases found in the radiation
balance term were offset by increases in the aerodynamic term. da Silva (2004)
analyzed time-series of eight climatic variables to ascertain the existence of climate
variability in the northeast of Brazil. He indicated increasing trends for maximum
(Tmax ), mean (Tmean ) and minimum (Tmin ) temperatures, Epan , ETo and aridity index,
and decreasing trends for relative humidity and precipitation (P). Oguntunde et al.
(2006) investigated trends and variability in hydroclimatology variables of the Volta
River Basin in West Africa from 1901 to 2002 and found positive trends in Epan data.
Stanhill and Möller (2008) analyzed evaporation measurements made at 16 sites in
the British Isles for evidence of long-term changes. Four out of eight studied Irish
Class A evaporation pan series between 1963 and 2005 showed significant linear
trends, three of increasing and one of decreasing evaporation. Besides, five out of
eight studied UK sunken evaporation tank series between 1885 and 1968 indicated
statistically significant linear trends, two of increasing and three of decreasing
evaporation.
So far, several authors investigated the estimation of Epan and ETo in Iran (Tabari
2010; Tabari et al. 2010; Sabziparvar et al. 2010; Sabziparvar and Tabari 2010), but
no comprehensive study has been carried out on the temporal trends in Epan and
ETo time series. As the first attempt in Iran, the main aim of this study was to
investigate temporal variations in annual Epan for 12 stations located in Hamedan
province in western Iran during 1982–2003. Also, the influences of air temperature
and precipitation on the temporal trends detected in Epan were analyzed.

2 Materials and Methods

2.1 Study Area and Data

The study area is Hamedan province which is located in the west of Iran, at 47◦ 45
E to 49◦ 36 E longitude and 33◦ 33 N to 35◦ 38 N latitude, covering 19,368 km2
of land area (Fig. 1). Hamedan is one of the mountainous provinces of Iran. The
highest point in this province is the Alvand peak, 3,574 m high. The climate in the
study region is semi-arid with mild summers and very cold winters. The mean annual
rainfall is 320 mm. Winter precipitation is mainly snow, lasting some 6 to 8 months in
the mountainous areas and 1 to 2 months on the plateau. The rest of the precipitation
is provided by scarce spring and fall rains. Hamedan is one of the coldest provinces
of Iran and its temperature may drop below −30◦ C on the coldest days. The mean
monthly temperature in the study area varies from −5◦ C in January to 24◦ C in July,
with an annual mean of 11◦ C.
Data including maximum, mean and minimum air temperatures, precipitation and
pan evaporation were collected from 12 stations for the period 1982–2003 (Table 1).
The basic statistics for the 22-years of data set are summarized in Table 2. Long-term
Epan data are available for a few stations in Iran. Only stations that currently record
Epan and have at least 22 years of continuous Epan data were selected for this study.
In order to increase the number of stations with data covering 22 years or more,
100 H. Tabari, S. Marofi

Fig. 1 Geographic location of the study region and the stations

one neighbouring station (Kangavar) was combined. The class A pan was chosen
as the standard for measuring evaporation in Iran due to it being the international
preference. The class A pan is a circular pan made of galvanized iron, with 121 cm
diameter and 25.5 cm deep which is supported by a wood frame stand.

2.2 Trend Analysis

A large number of tests can be used for trend detection in long time series
of meteorological and hydrological records. In the present study, three tests in-
cluding Mann–Kendall, Sen’s slope estimator and linear regression have been
Changes of Pan Evaporation in the West of Iran 101

Table 1 Geographic characteristics of the stations used in the study

Station name Station type Longitude (E) Latitude (N) Elevation (m a.s.l.)
1. Dargezin Climatological 49◦ 01 35◦ 21 1,870
2. Ekbatan Research 48◦ 32 34◦ 52 1,730
3. Ekbatan dam Evaporimeter 48◦ 36 34◦ 46 1,880
4. Ghahavand Raingauge 49◦ 01 34◦ 51 1,480
5. Kangavar Synoptic 47◦ 59 34◦ 30 1,468
6. Kheir-Abad Evaporimeter 48◦ 32 34◦ 28 1,740
7. Khomigan Evaporimeter 49◦ 02 35◦ 22 1,810
8. Khosro-Abad Evaporimeter 48◦ 02 34◦ 38 1,500
9. Malayer Synoptic 48◦ 49 34◦ 17 1,776
10. Nahavand Synoptic 48◦ 24 34◦ 09 1,685
11. Nozheh Synoptic 48◦ 41 35◦ 12 1,679
12. Varayeneh Evaporimeter 48◦ 24 34◦ 05 1,800

used for detection of trends. Brief descriptions of these statistical methods are as
follows:

2.2.1 Linear Regression Model

Simple linear regression is an important and commonly used parametric method for
identifying monotonic trend in a time series. It is used to describe the relationship
between one variable with another or other variables of interest. It is often per-
formed to obtain the slope of hydrological and meteorological variables on time.
Positive slope shows increasing trend while negative slope indicates negative trend.
Regression has the advantage that it provides a measure of significance based on
the hypothesis test on the slope and also gives the magnitude of the rate of change
(Hirsch et al. 1991). The total change during the period under observation is obtained
by multiplying the slope with the number of years.

2.2.2 Mann–Kendall Test

The Mann–Kendall test is a non-parametric test for identifying trends in time series
data. The test compares the relative magnitudes of sample data rather than the data

Table 2 Mean values with standard deviation of the variables used in this study at different stations
during 1982–2003
Station Tmax (◦ C) Tmean (◦ C) Tmin (◦ C) P (mm) Epan (mm)
Dargezin 18.2 ± 0.8 11.0 ± 1.0 4.0 ± 0.8 325.9 ± 101.6 1,554 ± 183
Ekbatan 19.1 ± 1.1 11.0 ± 1.1 2.9 ± 1.1 310.0 ± 71.4 1,550 ± 197
Ekbatan dam 18.3 ± 0.8 10.7 ± 0.9 3.1 ± 1.0 337.0 ± 79.8 1,807 ± 211
Ghahavand 19.7 ± 1.4 11.3 ± 1.2 2.9 ± 1.2 233.7 ± 51.4 1,585 ± 268
Kangavar 21.0 ± 1.1 13.3 ± 0.9 4.7 ± 1.1 401.6 ± 101.4 1,705 ± 365
Kheir-Abad 19.6 ± 1.3 12.8 ± 1.1 5.6 ± 0.9 312.2 ± 72.5 2,612 ± 313
Khomigan 17.8 ± 1.0 10.6 ± 2.0 4.3 ± 1.6 273.3 ± 69.9 1,933 ± 180
Khosro-Abad 21.8 ± 1.3 12.5 ± 1.1 2.7 ± 1.8 329.7 ± 84.0 2,262 ± 470
Malayer 20.0 ± 1.1 14.0 ± 1.5 6.0 ± 0.8 307.8 ± 75.4 1,996 ± 238
Nahavand 20.5 ± 0.9 13.5 ± 1.2 5.9 ± 1.1 421.7 ± 116.9 1,835 ± 250
Nozheh 19.3 ± 1.0 10.9 ± 0.9 2.5 ± 1.0 331.5 ± 74.0 1,429 ± 189
Varayeneh 19.8 ± 1.2 9.8 ± 1.8 0.1 ± 2.8 517.9 ± 142.4 1,878 ± 320
102 H. Tabari, S. Marofi

values themselves (Gilbert 1987). One advantage of this test is that the data need
not conform to any particular distribution. The second advantage of the test is its
low sensitivity to abrupt breaks due to inhomogeneous time series (Jaagus 2006).
Mann (1945) originally used this test and Kendall (1975) subsequently derived the
test statistic distribution. According to this test, the null hypothesis H0 states that
the deseasonalized data (x1 ,. . . ,xn ) is a sample of n independent and identically
distributed random variables. The alternative hypothesis H1 of a two-sided test is
that the distributions of xk and x j are not identical for all k, j ≤ n with k  = j. The
test statistic S, which has mean zero and a variance computed by Eq. 3, is calculated
using Eqs. 1 and 2, and is asymptotically normal:


n−1 
n
 
S= sgn x j − xk (1)
k=1 j=k+1

⎧  
⎪ +1 i f x j − xk > 0
⎪
⎨
   
sgn x j − xk = 0 i f x j − xk = 0 (2)
⎪
⎪  
⎩
−1 i f x j − xk < 0

n (n − 1) (2n + 5) − t (t − 1) (2t + 5)
t
Var (S) = (3)
18
The notation t is the extent of any given tie and denotes the summation over
t
all ties. In cases where the sample size n > 10, the standard normal variable Z is
computed by using Eq. 4.
⎧ S−1
⎪
⎪ √Var (S) i f S > 0
⎪
⎪
⎪
⎨
Z = 0 if S = 0 (4)
⎪
⎪
⎪ S+1
⎪
⎪
⎩√ if S < 0
Var (S)
Positive values of Z indicate increasing trends while negative values of Z show
decreasing trends. When testing either increasing or decreasing monotonic trends
at a α significance level, the null hypothesis was rejected for absolute value of Z
greater than Z 1−α/2 , obtained from the standard normal cumulative distribution
tables (Partal and Kahya 2006; Modarres and da Silva 2007). In this research,
significance levels of α = 0.01 and 0.05 were applied.

2.2.3 Sen’s Slope Estimator

If a linear trend is present in a time series, then the true slope (change per unit
time) can be estimated by using a simple non-parametric procedure developed by
Sen (1968). The slope estimates of N pairs of data are first computed by
x j − xk
Qi = f or i = 1, ..., N (5)
j−k
Changes of Pan Evaporation in the West of Iran 103

where x j and xk are data values at times j and k( j > k), respectively. The median of
these N values of Qi is Sen’s estimator of slope. If N is odd, then Sen’s estimator is
computed by
Qmed = Q[(n+1)/2] (6)
If N is even, then Sen’s estimator is computed by
1
Qmed = Q[ N/2] + Q[(N+2)/2] (7)
2
Finally, Qmed is tested by a two-sided test at the 100(1 − α)% confidence interval
and the true slope may be obtained by the non-parametric test (Partal and Kahya
2006).
In this work, the confidence interval was computed at two different confidence
levels (α = 0.01 and α = 0.05) as follows:

Cα = Z 1−α/2 Var (S) (8)
where Var(S) has been defined in Eq. 3, and Z 1−α/2 is obtained from the standard
normal distribution.
Then, M1 = (N − Cα )/2 and M2 = (N + Cα )/2 are computed. The lower and
upper limits of the confidence interval, Qmin and Qmax , are the M1th largest and the
(M1 + 1)th largest of the Nordered slope estimates Qi . If M1 is not a whole number,
the lower limit is interpolated. Correspondingly, if M2 is not a whole number, the
upper limit is interpolated (Salmi et al. 2002).

3 Results and Discussion

3.1 Trends in Epan

Annual trends of Epan and their magnitude (in mm year−1 ) obtained by the Mann–
Kendall test, the Sen’s slope estimator and the linear regression are given in Table 3.
As shown, both positive and negative trends were observed in Epan series, which
were mostly positive. Ten of the 12 stations showed increasing trends. Among
the increasing trends, eight significant trends were detected at the 95% and 99%

Table 3 Values of slope b of Station Z Qmed b (mm year−1 )

the linear regression analysis,
values of statistics Z of the Dargezin 3.30a 21.78a 20.109a
Mann–Kendall test and values Ekbatan 2.68a 17.07a 18.158a
of statistics Qmed of the Sen’s Ekbatan dam −1.72 −11.80 −11.914
slope estimator for annual Ghahavand −0.99 −9.69 −9.572
Epan (1982–2003) Kangavar 2.09b 26.60b 25.255b
Kheir-Abad 2.09b 21.71b 26.286a
Khomigan 2.14b 12.01b 13.204b
Khosro-Abad 1.72 32.60 29.335
a Trends
Malayer 1.13 11.74 7.0553
statistically significant Nahavand 2.37b 16.29b 16.577b
at the 99% confidence level
b Trends statistically significant Nozheh 2.96a 19.76a 19.217a
at the 95% confidence level Varayeneh 3.81a 41.80a 39.300a
104 H. Tabari, S. Marofi

confidence levels. The observed increase in Epan , which is largely determined by

available energy, could be caused by increases in temperature and/or net radiation
over the last century. A change in temperature may be due to climate change,
whereas a change in net radiation associated with a change in surface albedo
may be due to historical land use change (Oguntunde et al. 2006). The significant
increasing trends varied between (+)132 mm per decade in the Khomigan station and
(+)393 mm per decade in the Varayeneh station. When averaged over all 12 stations,
the trend in annual Epan rate for the period 1982–2003 was (+)160 mm per decade or
to 9% of climatological mean, that is 1,845.7 mm. The positive trends of Epan series
found in this study are in good agreement with results obtained for other territories
in Brazil (da Silva 2004), Israel (Cohen et al. 2002) and West Africa (Oguntunde
et al. 2006), but are different from Epan changes reported in China (Xu et al. 2006;
Wang et al. 2007), India (Jhajharia et al. 2009), Australia (Roderick and Farquhar
2004; Jovanovic et al. 2008) and New Zealand (Roderick and Farquhar 2005) where
decreasing trends have been identified.
The rate of increasing trend in annual Epan obtained in this study is much smaller
than that reported by da Silva (2004) when he analyzed climatic changes in the
northeast of Brazil and detected a trend of 41.6% per decade. On the contrary,
the magnitude found in this research is greater than those reported by Cohen et al.
(2002) and Oguntunde et al. (2006) who investigated trends of Epan in Israel and
West Africa, respectively. Cohen et al. (2002) defined an increasing trend of 2.17%
per decade, while Oguntunde et al. (2006) detected a positive trend of 2 mm per
decade for the period 1901–1969 and 18 mm per decade during 1970–2002.
The comparison between the results of the parametric and non-parametric
methods shows that the methods were greatly coincident. All of significant positive
trends detected by the non-parametric tests were confirmed by the parametric
method.

3.2 Meteorological Relations

It is important to understand the causes of changes in Epan in order to make more

robust predictions about future changes in the hydrological cycle. Pan evaporation is
mainly a function of temperature, radiation, wind speed, humidity and precipitation.
In this section, possible causes of the increase in Epan are discussed in view of
the trends of the meteorological variables available in the study area including
maximum, mean and minimum temperatures and precipitation.

Correlations In order to identify the dominant variables associated with the changes
in Epan in the study area, they are correlated with all the meteorological variables
including maximum, mean and minimum temperatures and precipitation (Table 4).
As shown, positive correlations between Epan and Tmax were found in almost all the
stations. The positive correlations were significant at Dargezin, Ekbatan, Khomigan,
Nahavand and Varayeneh stations. Likewise, Epan positively correlated with Tmean
in most of the stations, which were significant at Dargezin, Ekbatan, Khomigan,
Nahavand and Nozheh stations. Furthermore, there were positive correlations be-
tween Epan and Tmin in the majority of the stations. The positive correlations were
significant at Ekbatan, Khosro-Abad and Nozheh stations. Nevertheless, only one
significant negative correlation was observed at Kangavar station. In general, pan
Table 4 Results of Pearson’s correlation between pan evaporation and the meteorological variables
Station Tmax Tmean Tmin P
r Equation r Equation r Equation r Equation
Dargezin 0.465a Epan = 99.112Tmax 0.506a Epan = 98.587Tmean 0.345 Epan = 75.048Tmin 0.085 Epan = 0.1537 P
− 250.25 + 468.24 + 1252.7 + 1503.5
Ekbatan 0.581a Epan = 103.27Tmax 0.516a Epan = 98.293Tmean 0.498a Epan = 83.833Tmin −0.243 Epan = −0.6687 P
− 423.3 + 466.58 + 1309.5 + 1756.9
Ekbatan dam 0.025 Epan = 6.2192Tmax −0.171 Epan = −40.685Tmean −0.320 Epan = −66.45Tmin −0.311 Epan = −0.821 P
+ 1693.3 + 2242.5 + 22014.5 + 2084
Ghahavand −0.026 Epan = −4.9321Tmax −0.139 Epan = −30.352Tmean −0.185 Epan = −41.6Tmin −0.117 Epan = −0.6086 P
+ 1682 + 1929.3 + 1705.8 + 1727.1
Kangavar 0.209 Epan = 66.346Tmax 0.239 Epan = 102.23Tmean −0.736a Epan = −248.78Tmin −0.120 Epan = −0.4318 P
+ 314.34 + 347.26 + 2873.6 + 1878.9
Kheir-Abad 0.406 Epan = 101.43Tmax 0.150 Epan = 42.407Tmean 0.217 Epan = 75.112Tmin −0.315 Epan = −0.6087 P
Changes of Pan Evaporation in the West of Iran

+ 625.33 + 2068.1 + 2195.2 + 1716.9

Khomigan 0.474a Epan = 84.916Tmax 0.416a Epan = 38.133Tmean 0.387 Epan = 41.496Tmin −0.577a Epan = −1.4836 P
+ 424.86 + 1527.5 + 1755.4 + 2339.1
Khosro-Abad 0.116 Epan = 40.906Tmax −0.074 Epan = −31.416Tmean 0.541a Epan = 136.82Tmin −0.381 Epan = −2.1302 P
+ 1372.1 + 2655.5 + 1892.5 + 2964.8
Malayer 0.273 Epan = 57.789Tmax 0.005 Epan = 0.7264Tmean 0.208 Epan = 57.924Tmin −0.211 Epan = −0.664 P
+ 837.92 + 1986.2 + 1647.2 + 2200.7
Nahavand 0.451a Epan = 119.33Tmax 0.628a Epan = 127.64Tmean 0.351 Epan = 78.928Tmin −0.284 Epan = −0.6088 P
− 616.49 + 113.26 + 1368.6 + 2091.4
Nozheh 0.217 Epan = 40.109Tmax 0.423a Epan = 88.693Tmean 0.515a Epan = 91.927Tmin −0.324 Epan = −0.8287 P
+ 653.45 + 462.79 + 1202.2 + 1704.3
Varayeneh 0.581a Epan = 150.64Tmax 0.281 Epan = 50.966Tmean 0.353 Epan = 101.46Tmin −0.546a Epan = −1.2256 P
− 1112.4 + 1378.5 + 1279.4 + 2513.2

Average 0.314 – 0.232 – 0.181 – −0.222 –

Epan and P are in (mm/year); Tmax , Tmean and Tmin are in (◦ C)
a Pearson’s correlation statistically significant at the 95% confidence level
105
106 H. Tabari, S. Marofi

evaporation had significant positive correlations with maximum, mean and minimum
temperatures in the majority of the stations. This reveals dependence of temperature
and Epan in the study area. Besides, there is evidence of a week inverse relationship
between Epan and precipitation in ten stations, but the correlation coefficient was
not significantly different from zero in the majority of the stations. When averaged
over all 12 stations, negative regression coefficient of −0.22 was obtained between
Epan and precipitation. Jovanovic et al. (2008) found a very strong inverse correlation
between Epan and P (correlation coefficient of −0.81) in Australia.
Overall, the strongest correlation was found between Epan and Tmax (average
correlation coefficient of 0.31) in this study. Jovanovic et al. (2008) also reported
correlation coefficient of 0.53 between Epan and temperature. Mean temperature
appears to be the second most dominant variable influencing Epan over all sta-
tions (average correlation coefficient of 0.23), although there are no meaningful
differences between average correlation coefficients obtained for the meteorological
variables. In addition, a correlation coefficient of 0.18 was found between Tmin and
Epan when averaged over all 12 stations. Figure 2 also shows time series of the
meteorological variables and their relationships with Epan series in the study area.
It is clear that the pattern of recent rapid warming is reflected in the Epan changes.
Combined influences of the meteorological variables on Epan were also investi-
gated in this study. The average values of the Epan and meteorological variables were
calculated for each year (from 1982 to 2003) over the 12 stations. Then, multiple
linear regression (MLR) was applied for evaluating the relationship between Epan
and all of the meteorological variables. In the MLR method, the Epan variable
was defined as the dependent one and Tmax , Tmean , Tmin and P were considered
as independent. The results showed that there was a strong correlation (r = 0.65,
p value = 0.041) between these variables and Epan indicating that the combined
influences of the meteorological variables on Epan are much more than the influences
of each variable separately.

Trends Results of the three statistical tests on Tmax , Tmean , Tmin and P series are
given in Tables 5, 6, 7 and 8. As shown in Table 5, all trend signals in annual Tmax were
positive indicating a warming climate. The non-parametric tests (Mann–Kendall and
Sen’s slope estimator) detected significant trends at Ekbatan, Kangavar, Kheir-Abad
and Varayeneh stations, while the parametric method (linear regression) identified
six significant trends. Significant increasing trend rates in Tmax lay in the range of
(+)0.631◦ C per decade in the Nahavand station to (+)1.295◦ C per decade in the
Kheir-Abad station.
Analysis of Tmean series indicated positive trends in almost all the stations
(Table 6). The Mann–Kendall test, the Sen’s slope estimator and the linear regression
method detected four, three and six significant increasing trends, respectively. The
significant increasing trends ranged between (+)0.715◦ C per decade in the Nozheh
station and (+)1.426◦ C per decade in the Khomigan station. Hasanean (2001) also
found a significant positive trend in Tmean at the 99% confidence level for Jerusalem
and Tripoli stations when investigated trends in Tmean series at eight meteorological
stations in the East Mediterranean.
Similar to the Tmean series, 11 warming trends were found in Tmin data
(Table 7). Among the warming trends, seven significant trends were identified by
Changes of Pan Evaporation in the West of Iran 107

Fig. 2 Time series plots of the 2300 22

meteorological variables and Pan evaporation
their relationships with Epan Maximum temperature
series in Hamedan province 2100 20.75

Epan (mm)

Tmax (o C)
1900 19.5

1700 18.25

1500 17
1982 1986 1990 1994 1998 2002

2300 14
Pan evaporation

Mean temperature
2100 12.75
Epan (mm)

Tmean (o C)
1900 11.5

1700 10.25

1500 9
1982 1986 1990 1994 1998 2002

2300 6.5
Pan evaporation

Minimum temperature
2100 5.25
Epan (mm)

1900 4 Tmin (o C)

1700 2.75

1500 1.5
1982 1986 1990 1994 1998 2002

2300 600
Pan evaporation

Precipitation
2100 500
Epan (mm)

P (mm)

1900 400

1700 300

1500 200
1982 1986 1990 1994 1998 2002
108 H. Tabari, S. Marofi

Table 5 Values of slope b of Station Z Qmed b (◦ C year−1 )

the linear regression analysis,
values of statistics Z of the Dargezin 1.16 0.046 0.0445
Mann–Kendall test and values Ekbatan 2.55a 0.087a 0.1006b
of statistics Qmed of the Sen’s Ekbatan dam 0.71 0.021 0.0244
slope estimator for annual Ghahavand 1.41 0.045 0.0782
mean of Tmax (1982–2003) Kangavar 2.68b 0.116a 0.1101b
Kheir-Abad 3.17b 0.118b 0.1295b
Khomigan 0.76 0.020 0.0333
Khosro-Abad 1.27 0.055 0.0675
a Trends
Malayer 1.64 0.057 0.0746a
statistically significant Nahavand 1.58 0.057 0.0631a
at the 95% confidence level
b Trends statistically significant Nozheh 0.59 0.025 0.0405
at the 99% confidence level Varayeneh 3.11b 0.114b 0.1185b

the statistical tests. The magnitude of significant positive trends in annual Tmin varied
from (+)1.086◦ C per decade in the Nozheh station to (+)1.360◦ C per decade in
the Ekbatan station. The minimum, mean and maximum temperatures show, in
general, a similar warming pattern, although the magnitude of the increasing trends
in Tmin data was higher than that in Tmax . This is coincident with results of Salinger
and Griffiths (2001) that investigated trends in New Zealand daily temperature and
rainfall extremes. The positive trends of Tmax and Tmin series found in this research
match the findings of Turkes and Sumer (2004) and Smadi (2006) for Turkey and
Jordan, respectively. The rate of increasing trends in annual Tmax , Tmean and Tmin
obtained in this study is greater than that reported by da Silva (2004) that investigated
climatic variability in the northeast of Brazil.
As shown in Table 8, the majority of the stations exhibited decreasing trends in P
time series. Only one significant trend of (+)44.837 mm per decade was observed in
the Ghahavand station (99% confidence level). Roderick and Farquhar (2004) also
pointed out that the trend in precipitation of Australia for 1970–2002 when averaged
over all sites was not statistically significant. Besides, the other study carried out by
Roderick and Farquhar (2005) in New Zealand indicated that there were very few
stations showing statistically significant changes in precipitation. Furthermore, no
significant changes in precipitation were found by Cohen et al. (2002) in Israel. The

Table 6 Values of slope b of Station Z Qmed b (◦ C year−1 )

the linear regression analysis,
values of statistics Z of the Dargezin 1.64 0.064 0.0725
Mann–Kendall test and values Ekbatan 3.53a 0.106a 0.1232a
of statistics Qmed of the Sen’s Ekbatan dam 2.46b 0.073b 0.0789a
slope estimator for annual Ghahavand 2.89a 0.107a 0.1177a
mean of Tmean (1982–2003) Kangavar 0.82 0.027 0.0135
Kheir-Abad 0.68 0.020 0.0200
Khomigan 1.69 0.087 0.1426b
Khosro-Abad −0.08 0.000 0.0049
a Trends
Malayer 0.20 0.013 −0.0282
statistically significant Nahavand 1.47 0.047 0.0824b
at the 99% confidence level
b Trends statistically significant Nozheh 2.15b 0.055 0.0715b
at the 95% confidence level Varayeneh 0.31 0.025 0.0056
Changes of Pan Evaporation in the West of Iran 109

Table 7 Values of slope b of Station Z Qmed b (◦ C year−1 )

the linear regression analysis,
values of statistics Z of the Dargezin 1.41 0.047 0.0427
Mann–Kendall test and values Ekbatan 4.21a 0.120a 0.1360a
of statistics Qmed of the Sen’s Ekbatan dam 3.42a 0.115a 0.1120a
slope estimator for annual Ghahavand 3.02a 0.109a 0.1167a
mean of Tmin (1982–2003) Kangavar −0.93 −0.050 −0.0692
Kheir-Abad 1.05 0.025 0.0445
Khomigan 0.54 0.025 0.0390
Khosro-Abad 2.45b 0.122b 0.1290b
a Trends
Malayer 0.88 0.025 0.0395
statistically significant Nahavand 3.85a 0.075a 0.1125a
at the 99% confidence level
b Trends statistically significant Nozheh 3.14a 0.120a 0.1086a
at the 95% confidence level Varayeneh 3.85a 0.075a 0.1125a

absence of any major trends in precipitation is not surprising given the large year-to-
year variability that is typical of precipitation records (Roderick and Farquhar 2004).
Overall, the study area has experienced a rapid warming over the 1982–2003
period. One expected consequence of this warming is that the air near the surface
should be drier, which should result in an increase in the rate of evaporation from
terrestrial open water bodies (Roderick and Farquhar 2002). The main factors
associated with increasing Epan are temperature variables (min, mean and max).
Besides, increasing Epan was not strongly related to P changes. In other words, the
change of pan evaporation is not very sensitive to changes in precipitation.
The concurrent occurrences of significant increasing trends in Epan and significant
positive trends in Tmax , Tmean and Tmin were found at Ekbatan station. Likewise,
the concurrent occurrences of significant positive trends in Epan and significant
warming trends in Tmean and Tmin were observed at Nozheh station. Furthermore, the
concurrent occurrences of significant upward trends in Epan and significant increasing
trends in Tmax and Tmin were detected at Varayeneh station. The significant increasing
temperature and pan evaporation together with decreasing precipitation can be
expected to have led to a marked increase in aridity. In other words, Hamedan
province has become more arid over the last 22 years, not because precipitation has
changed, but rather because evaporation, and hence the atmospheric demand for
water, has increased. These results support the suggestion of Smit et al. (1988) that

Table 8 Values of slope b of Station Z Qmed B (mm year−1 )

the linear regression analysis,
values of statistics Z of the Dargezin −0.11 −0.850 2.8020
Mann–Kendall test and values Ekbatan −0.67 −1.775 −1.1209
of statistics Qmed of the Sen’s Ekbatan dam −0.45 −2.100 −1.2896
slope estimator for annual P Ghahavand 2.65a 4.300a 4.4837a
(1982–2003) Kangavar −0.68 −1.300 −1.7198
Kheir-Abad −0.37 −1.058 −1.0112
Khomigan −0.48 −0.941 −0.3477
Khosro-Abad −0.62 −1.169 −1.7293
a Trends
Malayer 0.00 −0.433 −2.1691
statistically significant Nahavand −0.34 −1.146 −1.4379
at the 99% confidence level
b Trends statistically significant Nozheh −1.10 −3.489 −3.3021
at the 95% confidence level Varayeneh −1.83 −9.292 −9.2357
110 H. Tabari, S. Marofi

mid-latitude regions such as the mid-western USA, southern Europe and Asia are
becoming warmer and drier.

4 Conclusions

In this study, we analyzed changes of observed Epan and the associated variations
in Tmax , Tmean , Tmin and P data for 12 stations in Hamedan province in western
Iran from 1982 to 2003. Trend analysis was carried out by the Mann–Kendall test,
the Sen’s slope estimator and the linear regression method. Significantly increasing
Epan was observed in 67% of the stations at the 95% and 99% confidence levels.
Likewise, the significant positive trends in Epan ranged from (+)132 mm per decade
in the Khomigan station to (+)393 mm per decade in the Verayeneh station.
Analysis of relations between Epan and the meteorological variables indicated that
Epan has significant positive correlations with Tmax , Tmean and Tmin . The concurrent
occurrences of significant increasing trends in Epan and significant positive trends
in Tmax , Tmean or Tmin were found at Ekbatan, Kangavar, Kheir-Abad, Nahavand,
Nozheh and Varayeneh stations. In contrast, concurrent occurrence of significant
positive trends in Epan and significant decreasing trends in P were not observed.
Due to lack of wind speed, relative humidity and radiation data, their relations to
pan evaporation changes were not investigated in this study. It is also recommended
to evaluate the relations in other areas in Iran with similar climatic conditions,
provided that the data are available. The results of this research revealed that the
study area has become more arid in recent years. The findings of this study need
to be verified in other climatic conditions of Iran especially in arid climates where
evaporation changes are crucial for estimating crop water requirements.

Acknowledgements Special thanks are due to the different people who collected the required
data at 12 mentioned sites. The authors are grateful to the anonymous reviewers whose suggestions
significantly contributed to improve the work.

References

Burn DH, Hesch NM (2007) Trends in evaporation for the Canadian Prairies. J Hydrol 336:61–73
Cohen S, Ianetz A, Stanhill G (2002) Evaporative climate change at Bet Dagan, Israel, 1964–1998.
Agric For Meteorol 111:83–91
da Silva VPR (2004) On climate variability in Northeast of Brazil. J Arid Environ 58:575–596
Gilbert RO (1987) Statistical methods for environmental pollution monitoring. Van Nostrand
Reinhold, New York
Golubev VS, Lawrimore JH, Groisman PY, Speranskaya NA, Zhuravin SA, Menne MJ, Peterson
TC, Malone RW (2001) Evaporation changes over the contiguous United States and the former
USSR: a reassessment. Geophys Res Lett 28:2665–2668
Harmsen EW, Gonzalez-Perez A, Winter A (2004) Re-evaluation of pan evaporation coefficients at
seven locations in Puerto Rico. J Agric Univ P R 88:109–122
Hasanean HM (2001) Fluctuations of surface air temperature in the Eastern Mediterranean. Theor
Appl Climatol 68:75–87
Hirsch RM, Alexander RB, Smith RA (1991) Selection of methods for the detection and estimation
of trends in water quality. Water Resour Res 27:803–814
Hobbins MT, Ramirez JA, Brown TC (2004) Trends in pan evaporation and actual evapotran-
spiration across the conterminous US: paradoxical or complementary? Geophys Res Lett
31(13):L13503. doi:10.1029=2004GL019846
Changes of Pan Evaporation in the West of Iran 111

IPCC (1996) Climate change 1995: the science of climate change, contribution of working group I to
the second assessment report of the intergovernmental panel on climate change. In: Houghton
JT, Meira Filho LG, Callander BA, Harris N, Kattenberg A, Maskell K (eds) Cambridge
University Press, Cambridge, p 572
Jaagus J (2006) Climatic changes in Estonia during the second half of the 20th century in relationship
with changes in large-scale atmospheric circulation. Theor Appl Climatol 83:77–88
Jhajharia D, Shrivastava SK, Sarkar D, Sarkar S (2009) Temporal characteristics of pan evaporation
trends under the humid conditions of northeast India. Agric For Meteorol 149:763–770
Jovanovic B, Jones DA, Collins D (2008) A high-quality monthly pan evaporation dataset for
Australia. Clim Change 87:517–535
Kendall MG (1975) Rank correlation measures. Charles Griffin, London
Lawrimore JH, Peterson TC (2000) Pan evaporation trends in dry and humid regions of the United
States. J Hydrometeorol 1(6):543–546
Mann HB (1945) Non-parametric tests against trend. Econometrica 13:245–259
Modarres R, da Silva VPR (2007) Rainfall trends in arid and semi-arid regions of Iran. J Arid
Environ 70:344–355
Oguntunde PG, Friesen J, van de Giesen N, Savenije HHG (2006) Hydroclimatology of the Volta
River Basin in West Africa: trends and variability from 1901 to 2002. Phys Chem Earth 31:1180–
1188
Partal T, Kahya E (2006) Trend analysis in Turkish precipitation data. Hydrol Process 20:2011–2026
Peterson TC, Golubev VS, Groisman PY (1995) Evaporation losing its strength. Nature 337:687–688
Quintana-Gomez R (1997) Changes in evaporation patterns detected in northernmost south
America. homogeneity testing. In: Proc 7th international meeting on statistical climatology.
Whister, BC, Canada
Roderick ML, Farquhar GD (2002) The cause of decreased pan evaporation over the past 50 years.
Science 298:1410–1411
Roderick ML, Farquhar GD (2004) Change in Australian pan evaporation from 1970 to 2002. Int J
Climatol 24:1077–1090
Roderick ML, Farquhar GD (2005) Change in New Zealand pan evaporation since the 1970s. Int J
Climatol 25:2031–2039
Sabziparvar AA, Tabari H (2010) Regional estimation of reference evapotranspiration in arid and
semi-arid regions. J Irrig Drain Eng (in press)
Sabziparvar AA, Tabari H, Aeini A, Ghafouri M (2010) Evaluation of class A pan coefficient models
for estimation of reference crop evapotranspiration in cold-semi arid and warm arid climates.
Water Resour Manage 24(5):909–920
Salinger MJ, Griffiths GM (2001) Trends in New Zealand daily temperature and rainfall extremes.
Int J Climatol 21:1437–1452
Salmi T, Määttä A, Anttila P, Ruoho-Airola T, Amnell T (2002) Detecting trends of annual values of
atmospheric pollutants by the Mann–Kendall test and Sen’s slope estimates—the Excel template
application MAKESENS. Publications on Air Quality, No 31, Finnish Meteorological Institute,
Helsinki, Finland, p 35
Sen PK (1968) Estimates of the regression coefficient based on Kendall’s tau. J Am Stat Assoc
63(324):1379–1389
Smadi MM (2006) Observed abrupt changes in minimum and maximum temperatures in Jordan in
the 20th century. Am J Environ Sci 2(3):114–120
Smit B, Ludlow L, Brklacich M (1988) Implications of a global climatic warming for agriculture: a
review and appraisal. J Environ Qual 17:519–527
Stanhill G, Möller M (2008) Evaporative climate change in the British Isles. Int J Climatol 28:1127–
1137
Tabari H (2010) Evaluation of reference crop evapotranspiration equations in various climates.
Water Resour Manage. doi:10.1007/s11269-009-9553-8
Tabari H, Marofi S, Sabziparvar AA (2010) Estimation of daily pan evaporation using artificial
neural network and multivariate non-linear regression. Irrig Sci 28:399–406
Turkes M, Sumer UM (2004) Spatial and temporal patterns of trends and variability in diurnal
temperature ranges of Turkey. Theor Appl Climatol 77:195–227
Wang Y, Jiang T, Bothe O, Fraedrich K (2007) Changes of pan evaporation and reference evapo-
transpiration in the Yangtze River basin. Theor Appl Climatol 90:13–23
Xu CY, Gong L, Jiang T, Chen D, Singh VP (2006) Analysis of spatial distribution and tempo-
ral trend of reference evapotranspiration and pan evaporation in Changjiang (Yangtze River)
catchment. J Hydrol 327:81–93