Evaluation of the Surface Renewal Method for Estimating Cotton Evapotranspiration in South Carolina

2021 ◽  
Vol 37 (5) ◽  
pp. 819-830
Author(s):  
Andrew C. Ewing ◽  
José O. Payero ◽  
Liyi Xu ◽  
Tom O. Owino ◽  
Kosana Suvocarev

HighlightsThe Surface Renewal (SR), Eddy Covariance (EC), and FAO56 methods were used to estimate crop evapotranspiration.An independently calibrated SR approach was used with a low-cost cup anemometer and assumed energy balance closure.All three approaches (SR, EC, and FAO56) resulted in similar crop ET values during later stages of growth (R2 = 0.87).SR has the potential to lower field-scale ET measurement costs and equipment requirements.Abstract. Evapotranspiration (ET) is important for many agricultural and hydrological applications, but its measurement normally requires expensive instrumentation. The Surface Renewal method (SR) has been proposed as a relatively low-cost alternative to measure ET, but the need for local calibration has been cited as a shortcoming. Castellví (2004)(2004) proposed a similarity-based SR approach to address this shortcoming, but field comparisons evaluating the accuracy of the approach using low-cost anemometry are currently lacking. The objective of this study was to evaluate the reliability of the similarity-based SR approach using low-cost anemometry (cup anemometer) for estimating cotton ET in comparison to the Eddy Covariance (EC) and FAO56 methods (Allen et al., 1998). Concurrent estimates of cotton ET were taken in 2019 at two adjacent cotton fields in South Carolina using the SR, EC, and FAO56 methods. SR and EC measurements of sensible heat flux were replicated using two in-field tower locations in the north field and ET was derived using the energy balance closure approach. An analysis was made to ensure =90% of the EC and SR seasonal data came from the field area (Kljun et al., 2015), with additional filtering to ensure that the higher-mounted EC had >90% footprint from the field area for each half-hour of analysis. In general, the results showed very good agreement between the daily crop ET values measured by SR and EC (R2north = 0.93, R2south = 0.97) for all of the season, and good agreement between SR and FAO56 measurements when crop height was more developed (R2north = 0.92, R2south = 0.87), near or above a canopy height of 0.75 m. There was disagreement between the non-continuous north tower SR measurements and FAO56 measurements in earlier stages of growth (June and July R2 = 0.09), which may have been due to uncertainty with the FAO56 local single crop coefficients or with a lack of energy balance closure. The results suggest that the use of low-cost anemometry with the independently calibrated SR approach is a useful alternative to measure crop ET under the conditions of this study, but further research may be necessary to evaluate the use of low-cost anemometry for direct SR ET measurements. Keywords: Cotton irrigation, Crop coefficients, Eddy covariance, Evapotranspiration, ET, Surface renewal.

2009 ◽  
Vol 44 (11) ◽  
pp. 1365-1373 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carlos Antonio Costa dos Santos ◽  
Bernardo Barbosa da Silva ◽  
Tantravahi Venkata Ramana Rao ◽  
Christopher Michael Usher Neale

The objective of this work was to evaluate the reliability of eddy covariance measurements, analyzing the energy balance components, evapotranspiration and energy balance closure in dry and wet growing seasons, in a banana orchard. The experiment was carried out at a farm located within the irrigation district of Quixeré, in the Lower Jaguaribe basin, in Ceará state, Brazil. An eddy covariance system was used to measure the turbulent flux. An automatic weather station was installed in a grass field to obtain the reference evapotranspiration (ET0) from the combined FAO-Penman-Monteith method. Wind speed and vapor pressure deficit are the most important variables on the evaporative process in both growing seasons. In the dry season, the heat fluxes have a similar order of magnitude, and during the wet season the latent heat flux is the largest. The eddy covariance system had acceptable reliability in measuring heat flux, with actual evapotranspiration results comparing well with those obtained by using the water balance method. The energy balance closure had good results for the study area, with mean values of 0.93 and 0.86 for the dry and wet growing seasons respectively.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luise Wanner ◽  
Sreenath Paleri ◽  
Johannes Speidel ◽  
Ankur Desai ◽  
Matthias Sühring ◽  
...  

<p>Large-eddy simulations are useful tools to study transport processes by mesoscale structures in the atmospheric boundary layer, since in contrast to single-tower eddy covariance measurements, they provide not only temporally but also spatially highly resolved information. Therefore, they are well suited to study the energy balance closure problem, for which the mesoscale transport of latent and sensible heat, triggered by heterogeneous ecosystems, is suspected to be a major cause. However, this requires simulations that are as realistic as possible and thus allow a comparison of real measurements in the field and virtual measurements in the simulation.<br>During the Chequamegon Heterogeneous Ecosystem Energy-balance Study Enabled by a High-density Extensive Array of Detectors (CHEESEHEAD) experiment in the summer of 2019, a heterogeneous 10x10 square km domain was intensively sampled across scales. This data offers a unique possibility to set up large-eddy simulations with realistic surface heterogeneity. We use PALM to simulate two days and an area of 40 by 40 square kilometers incorporating the CHEESEHEAD site. The large scale atmospheric forcings to inform the boundary conditions are determined from the NCEP HRRR product. As the lower boundary condition, we use a soil and land-surface model coupled with a plant-canopy model, which we adapt to the CHEESEHEAD area based on ground-based and airborne measurements of plant physiological data.<br>In this study, we investigate how well the simulations match with real measurements by comparing simulated profiles and virtual tower measurements with field measurements from radiosonde ascents, lidar measurements of three-dimensional wind and water vapor, eddy-covariance measurements from the 400 meter tower in the center of the study domain, as well as from typical eddy-covariance stations distributed through the study area. This way, we investigate how realistic the simulations actually are and to what extent the knowledge gained from them concerning the energy balance closure problem can be transferred to field measurements.</p>


2018 ◽  
Vol 61 (2) ◽  
pp. 533-548 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Burdette Barker ◽  
Christopher M. U. Neale ◽  
Derek M. Heeren ◽  
Andrew E. Suyker

Abstract. Accurate generation of spatial soil water maps is useful for many types of irrigation management. A hybrid remote sensing evapotranspiration (ET) model combining reflectance-based basal crop coefficients (Kcbrf) and a two-source energy balance (TSEB) model was modified and validated for use in real-time irrigation management. We modeled spatial ET for maize and soybean fields in eastern Nebraska for the 2011-2013 growing seasons. We used Landsat 5, 7, and 8 imagery as remote sensing inputs. In the TSEB, we used the Priestly-Taylor (PT) approximation for canopy latent heat flux, as in the original model formulations. We also used the Penman-Monteith (PM) approximation for comparison. We compared energy balance fluxes and computed ET with measurements from three eddy covariance systems within the study area. Net radiation was underestimated by the model when data from a local weather station were used as input, with mean bias error (MBE) of -33.8 to -40.9 W m-2. The measured incident solar radiation appeared to be biased low. The net radiation model performed more satisfactorily when data from the eddy covariance flux towers were input into the model, with MBE of 5.3 to 11.2 W m-2. We removed bias in the daily energy balance ET using a dimensionless multiplier that ranged from 0.89 to 0.99. The bias-corrected TSEB ET, using weather data from a local weather station and with local ground data in thermal infrared imagery corrections, had MBE = 0.09 mm d-1 (RMSE = 1.49 mm d-1) for PM and MBE = 0.04 mm d-1 (RMSE = 1.18 mm d-1) for PT. The hybrid model used statistical interpolation to combine the two ET estimates. We computed weighting factors for statistical interpolation to be 0.37 to 0.50 for the PM method and 0.56 to 0.64 for the PT method. Provisions were added to the model, including a real-time crop coefficient methodology, which allowed seasonal crop coefficients to be computed with relatively few remote sensing images. This methodology performed well when compared to basal crop coefficients computed using a full season of input imagery. Water balance ET compared favorably with the eddy covariance data after incorporating the TSEB ET. For a validation dataset, the magnitude of MBE decreased from -0.86 mm d-1 (RMSE = 1.37 mm d-1) for the Kcbrf alone to -0.45 mm d-1 (RMSE = 0.98 mm d-1) and -0.39 mm d-1 (RMSE = 0.95 mm d-1) with incorporation of the TSEB ET using the PM and PT methods, respectively. However, the magnitudes of MBE and RMSE were increased for a running average of daily computations in the full May-October periods. The hybrid model did not necessarily result in improved model performance. However, the water balance model is adaptable for real-time irrigation scheduling and may be combined with forecasted reference ET, although the low temporal frequency of satellite imagery is expected to be a challenge in real-time irrigation management. Keywords: Center-pivot irrigation, ET estimation methods, Evapotranspiration, Irrigation scheduling, Irrigation water balance, Model validation, Variable-rate irrigation.


2006 ◽  
Vol 6 (12) ◽  
pp. 4395-4402 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. Foken ◽  
F. Wimmer ◽  
M. Mauder ◽  
C. Thomas ◽  
C. Liebethal

Abstract. After briefly discussing several reasons for the energy balance closure problem in the surface layer, the paper focuses on the influence of the low frequency part of the turbulence spectrum on the residual. Changes in the turbulent fluxes in this part of the turbulence spectrum were found to have a significant influence on the changes of the residual. Using the ogive method, it was found that the eddy-covariance method underestimates turbulent fluxes in the case of ogives converging for measuring times longer than the typical averaging interval of 30 min. Additionally, the eddy-covariance method underestimates turbulent fluxes for maximal ogive functions within the averaging interval, both mainly due to advection and non-steady state conditions. This has a considerable influence on the use of the eddy-covariance method.


2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 521-540 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ravshan Eshonkulov ◽  
Arne Poyda ◽  
Joachim Ingwersen ◽  
Hans-Dieter Wizemann ◽  
Tobias K. D. Weber ◽  
...  

Abstract. The energy balance of eddy-covariance (EC) measurements is typically not closed, resulting in one of the main challenges in evaluating and interpreting EC flux data. Energy balance closure (EBC) is crucial for validating and improving regional and global climate models. To investigate the nature of the gap in EBC for agroecosystems, we analyzed EC measurements from two climatically contrasting regions (Kraichgau – KR – and Swabian Jura – SJ) in southwestern Germany. Data were taken at six fully equipped EC sites from 2010 to 2017. The gap in EBC was quantified by ordinary linear regression, relating the energy balance ratio (EBR), calculated as the quotient of turbulent fluxes and available energy, to the residual energy term. In order to examine potential reasons for differences in EBC, we compared the EBC under varying environmental conditions and investigated a wide range of possible controls. Overall, the variation in EBC was found to be higher during winter than summer. Moreover, we determined that the site had a statistically significant effect on EBC but no significant effect on either crop or region (KR vs SJ). The time-variable footprints of all EC stations were estimated based on data measured in 2015, complimented by micro-topographic analyses along the prevailing wind direction. The smallest mean annual energy balance gap was 17 % in KR and 13 % in SJ. Highest EBRs were mostly found for winds from the prevailing wind direction. The spread of EBRs distinctly narrowed under unstable atmospheric conditions, strong buoyancy, and high friction velocities. Smaller footprint areas led to better EBC due to increasing homogeneity. Flow distortions caused by the back head of the anemometer negatively affected EBC during corresponding wind conditions.


Agronomy ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 99 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jerry Moorhead ◽  
Gary Marek ◽  
Prasanna Gowda ◽  
Xiaomao Lin ◽  
Paul Colaizzi ◽  
...  

Evapotranspiration (ET) is an important component in the water budget and used extensively in water resources management such as water planning and irrigation scheduling. In semi-arid regions, irrigation is used to supplement limited and erratic growing season rainfall to meet crop water demand. Although lysimetery is considered the most accurate method for crop water use measurements, high-precision weighing lysimeters are expensive to build and operate. Alternatively, other measurement systems such as eddy covariance (EC) are being used to estimate crop water use. However, due to numerous explicit and implicit assumptions in the EC method, an energy balance closure problem is widely acknowledged. In this study, three EC systems were installed in a field containing a large weighing lysimeter at heights of 2.5, 4.5, and 8.5 m. Sensible heat flux (H) and ET from each EC system were evaluated against the lysimeter. Energy balance closure ranged from 64% to 67% for the three sensor heights. Results showed that all three EC systems underestimated H and consequently overestimated ET; however, the underestimation of H was greater in magnitude than the overestimation of ET. Analysis showed accuracy of ET was greater than energy balance closure with error rates of 20%–30% for half-hourly values. Further analysis of error rates throughout the growing season showed that energy balance closure and ET accuracy were greatest early in the season and larger error was found after plants reached their maximum height. Therefore, large errors associated with increased biomass may indicate unaccounted-for energy stored in the plant canopy as one source of error. Summing the half-hourly data to a daily time-step drastically reduced error in ET to 10%–15%, indicating that EC has potential for use in agricultural water management.


2019 ◽  
Vol 37 (6) ◽  
pp. 737-749 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher K. Parry ◽  
Thomas M. Shapland ◽  
Larry E. Williams ◽  
Arturo Calderon-Orellana ◽  
Richard L. Snyder ◽  
...  

2014 ◽  
Vol 152 (3) ◽  
pp. 303-327 ◽  
Author(s):  
Doojdao Charuchittipan ◽  
Wolfgang Babel ◽  
Matthias Mauder ◽  
Jens-Peter Leps ◽  
Thomas Foken

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