Simplified SEBAL method for estimating vast areal evapotranspiration with MODIS data

• Published in: Water Science and Engineering Vol. 4; no. 1; pp. 24 - 35
• Main Authors: Xiao-chun Zhang, Jing-wei Wu, Hua-yi Wu, Yong Li
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier 01-03-2011
• Subjects: evapotranspiration; Haihe Basin; MODIS; remote sensing; SEBAL model; sensible heat flux
• ISSN: 1674-2370
• DOI: 10.3882/j.issn.1674-2370.2011.01.003

The SEBAL (surface energy balance algorithm for land) model provides an efficient tool for estimating the spatial distribution of evapotranspiration, and performs a simple adjustment procedure to calculate sensible heat flux using the wind speed data set from only one weather station. This paper proposes a simplified method to modify the traditional SEBAL model for calculating the 24-hour evapotranspiration (ETdaily) in the Haihe Basin with data from 34 weather stations. We interpolated the wind speeds using the inverse distance weighting method to establish a wind field and then used it to calculate the friction velocity directly. This process also simplifies the iterative computation process of sensible heat flux. To validate the feasibility of this simplified method, we compared the results with those obtained with an appropriate but more complex method proposed by Tasumi, which separates a vast area into several sub-areas based on the weather conditions, and runs the SEBAL model separately in each sub-area. The results show good agreement between the evapotranspiration generated by the two methods, with a coefficient of determination (r2) of 0.966, which indicates the feasibility of estimating evapotranspiration over a large region with the simplified method.