Department of Water Resources and

Irrigation Engineering
Water Development and Management
Institute
 
(WDMI)
Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
  Evapotranspiration
By
Madam Leah
 When studying water in the field, one cannot separate water
lost to evaporation from transpiration losses
 It is the sum of the amount of water transpired by plants
during the growth process and that amount that is
evaporated from soil and vegetation in the domain
occupied by the growing crop.
 ET is normally expressed in mm/day.
 It is typical to lump them together as evapotranspiration (E-
T).
 Potential evapotranspiration is the water loss that would
occur if there is an unlimited supply of water available
for transpiration and evaporation.
i.e. sufficient moisture is available to completely meet the
needs of vegetation fully covering the area
July 31, 2021 2
  In reality, the amount of water that transpires or
evaporates is limited by the amount of water that is
available
 PET does not depend on soil & plant factors but
depends on climatic factors

Actual evapotranspiration is the water loss that

would occur if there is a limited supply of water
available for transpiration and evaporation.
i.e. real evapotranspiration occurring in a specific situation

July 31, 2021 3

 Weather parameters, Crop Characteristics,
Management and Environmental aspects are
factors affecting ET
 
(a)   Weather Parameters:
The principal weather conditions affecting
evapotranspiration are:
 Radiation,
 Air temperature,
 Humidity
 Wind speed.
 Crop Type  Crop Roughness

 Variety of Crop  Ground Cover

 Development Stage  Crop Rooting Depth

 Crop Height
(a)   Factors such as
 soil salinity,
 Poor land fertility,
 Limited application of fertilizers,
 Absence of control of diseases and
 Pests and poor soil management

May limit the crop development and reduce soil evapotranspiration.

Other factors that affect ET are ground cover, plant density and soil
water content. The effect of soil water content on ET is conditioned
primarily by the magnitude of the water deficit and the type of soil. Too
much water will result in waterlogging which might damage the root
and limit root water uptake by inhibiting respiration.
 For vegetation it can be done in two ways:
1.Using lysimeters – a special water tank
containing a block of soil, set in a field of
growing plants.
ET is estimated by the amount of water
(volume or mass) required to maintain
constant moisture conditions within the tank
Disadvantages
Time consuming

Expensive
July 31, 2021 7
July 31, 2021 8
July 31, 2021 9
 2. Use of field plots
All components of the water budget in a time
interval are measured and ET is determined
as:
ET = P +Irr._input - runoff – increase in storage -
groundwater loss
 All terms except groundwater loss (due to
deep percolation) can be measured easily.
 For fairly reliable results, the loss is minimized
by keeping the moisture condition of the plot
at field capacity

July 31, 2021 10

  Over a long period of time ( 1 or more years),
the water budget approach has been used to
estimate AET (fairly) from a basin
 For short term, AET is estimated using
empirical relationships, generally obtained
from calculating PET x factor (accounting for
soil moisture deficit).
 This method is used worldwide
 Many empirical formula are used to calculate
PET using climatological data, for example:

July 31, 2021 11

 (i) Blaney-Criddle formula
Pure Empirical, based on data from arid western US.

Assumes that PET is related to hours of sunshine &

temperature (considered as solar radiation at an area)

ET= K. p(0.457Ta + 8.13)
where;
ET=PET [mm/month],
K=Crop coefficient depending on type of crop(Table
3.6),
p=monthly % of daylight hours in the year, Ta=mean
monthly air temperature in °C

July 31, 2021 12

July 31, 2021 13
  Blaney-Criddle formula is largely used by
irrigation engineers to calculate water
requirements of crops = PET –Effective
precipitation
= Water amount needed from irrigation

(ii) Thornthwaite formula

 Developed from data of Eastern US
 Uses only the monthly average daily
temperatures together with an adjustment for
daylight and days in a month.

July 31, 2021 14

 PET is calculated as;
10Ta a
ET  16 La ( )
It
Where:
ET=monthly PET [cm]
La=adjustment for the number of hours of
daylight & days in the month, related to the
latitude of the place as:
Dn N n
La 
July 31, 2021
360 15
 Dn=number of days in a month
Nn=average day length (hours) in a month
Ta=mean monthly air temperature oC in any
month
I=the total of 12 monthly values of heat index
as:
1.514
12
 Tn 
I   
1  5 

Tn=average temperature oC in month n, based

on 24 hour means
July 31, 2021 16
a=empirical constant, given as:
a = 6.75x10-7 I 3 - 7.7x10-5 I 2 +1.792x10-2 I + 0.49239

July 31, 2021 17

 Reference crop evapotranspiration (ETo)
• This is ET rate from a reference plant e.g. grass or alfalfa, not short
of water and is denoted as ETo. The ET of other crops can be
related to the ET of the reference plant.

• ETo is a climatic parameter as it is only affected by climatic factors.

• The FAO Penman-Monteith method is recommended as the sole

method for determining ETo.

• The method has been selected because it closely approximates

grass ETo at the location evaluated, is physically based, and
explicitly incorporates both physiological and aerodynamic
parameters.
ETC—Crop evapotranspiration
 The crop evapotranspiration under standard
conditions, denoted as ETc, is the
evapotranspiration from disease-free, well-fertilized
crops, grown in large fields, under optimum soil
water conditions, and achieving full production
under the given climatic conditions.

 ETc = Kc ETo.

 The crop evapotranspiration under non-standard

conditions is calculated by using a water stress
coefficient Ks and/or by adjusting Kc for all kinds of
other stresses and environmental constraints on
crop evapotranspiration.
PENMAN-MONTEITH METHOD
The aerodynamic process of determining
evaporation considered the transport of water
vapour by the turbulence of the wind blowing over a
natural surface.
Aerodynamic equation:

Ea  M (es  ez )u z The factor CEuz is referred to as the

transport function. Its inverse value
 aCE
M  0.622 is recognized as the aerodynamic
wP resistance to water vapour transfer,
ra
a 1
Ea  0.622 ( es  e z )
 w P ra
Since
 a  3.486 P /  273  T 
2.17 1
Ea  ( es  e z )
 w  T  273 ra
Another resistance is due to movement of water
vapour from inside plant leaves to the air outside
through small apertures in the leaves called stomata.

This stomatal resistance for the entire plant canopy is

called the surface resistance, rs.
 Monteith (1965) combined the aerodynamic
resistance and surface resistance into a function of
the form (1+rs/ra) and applied it to Penman
combination equation

The fully expanded form of the equation becomes;

 Rn  G
Eto  (es  ez ) 
   1  rs / ra   w
 2.17 1 o
 rs   w  T  273 ra
 ez  ez (86,400)
   1  
 ra 
ra  208 / u 2
For grass reference
rs
(1  )  1  0.33u2 
crop
ra