Comparison of FAO Crop Reference Estimates and Radiation based Estimates for Daily Reference Evapotranspiration Estimation

Reference evapotranspiration (ETo), a hypothetical concept to estimate evapotranspiration from irrigated and large grass fields is crucial in finding the irrigation water demand in places with extensive agricultural practice. In general, the FAO method (based on the Penman-Monteith equation) is used to estimate ETo from stations that are placed in locations that violate the requirements for reference evapotranspiration. In this study we compare radiation-based methods used to estimate reference evapotranspiration such as ETo De Bruin and ETo Makkink with more conventional ETo approaches in FAO PM method and Priestley Taylor method using in-situ measurements from stations placed in two different settings: (1) Areas that are well-irrigated but surrounded by dry land, (2) Areas that are dry but extensive. We use two spatially dense networks of stations: 1) CIMIS stations of California located in irrigated and in-extensive fields, (2) MESONET stations of Oklahoma located on dry surfaces.  We analyze the differences in the ETo estimates and hypothesize that the radiation-based estimates give more accurate results in the conditions given above for irrigation advisory. We also assess the spatial variability of the different ETo estimates and attempt to investigate the reason behind the differences in these estimates due to the climatic factors.