Effects of Conceptual Model Structure Uncertainties on Actual Evapotranspiration Simulation

Understanding the structural uncertainties within current conceptual hydrological models is crucial, as an appropriate model structure is essential for achieving accurate and reliable hydrological simulations. The development and evaluation of conceptual models have primarily focused on replicating streamflow dynamics, with less attention given to other important processes, such as the conversion from potential evapotranspiration (PET) to actual evapotranspiration (AET). This study assesses the performance of 33 existing conceptual model structures in simulating 8-day-scale AET across 671 catchments in the United States. These models are calibrated using both daily streamflow data and 8-day remote-sensing AET data. While most models demonstrate comparable performance in streamflow simulations, significant differences are observed in their performance in AET simulations. None of these models can consistently performs well in AET simulations across all 671 catchments, indicating that the “one-model-fits-all” assumption is not applicable. The performance of most models is found to be related to one or more catchment attributes. The most relevant catchment features are climatic, vegetation and topographical characteristics, including climatic aridity, precipitation seasonality, fraction of precipitation falling as snow, green vegetation fraction and catchment mean slope. In contrast to the “one-model-fits-all” assumption, catchments with distinct climatic, vegetation and/or topographical conditions require different ways to represent the AET process. Specifically, most models tend to underestimate AET in humid catchments where the majority of rainfall occurs in winter, except those account for interception evaporation. Additionally, models that explicitly include a vegetation transpiration component tend to perform better in catchments with denser vegetation cover. This work highlights the structure uncertainties related to AET simulations and may help model structure selections in a way to reasonably represent AET process.