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Improving reference evapotranspiration (ETo) calculation under limited data conditions in the high Tropical Andes

Abstract:

The computation of the reference crop evapotranspiration (ETo) using the FAO56 Penman-Monteith equation (PM-ETo) requires data on maximum and minimum air temperatures (Tmax, Tmin), relative humidity (RH), solar radiation (Rs), and wind speed (u2). However, the records of meteorological variables are often incomplete or of poor quality. Frequently, in the mountain areas such as those of the Andes, environmental sensors are subject to harsh conditions, due to the diurnal/nocturnal climatic variability causing challenging conditions for meteorological monitoring, which leads to data loss. For high-elevation landscapes like the Andes, the missing variables of vapor pressure deficit and solar radiation cause a high impact on PM-ETo calculation. To assess these limitations, several methods relying on maximum and minimum temperature to estimate the missing variables have been considered in the present …