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There are various methods available for estimating magnitude and trends of evapotranspiration. Bowen ratio energy balance system and eddy correlation techniques offer powerful alternatives for measuring land surface evapotranspiration. In spite of the elegance, high accuracy, and theoretical attractions of these techniques for measuring evapotranspiration, their practical use over large areas can be limited due to the number of sites needed and the related expense. Application of evapotranspiration mapping from satellite measurements can overcome the limitations. The objective of this study was to utilize the METRICTM (Mapping Evapotranspiration at High Resolution using Internalized Calibration) model in Great Plains environmental settings to understand water use in managed ecosystems on a regional scale. We investigated spatiotemporal distribution of a fraction of reference evapotranspiration (ETrF) using eight Landsat 5 images during the 2005 and 2006 growing season for path 29, row 32. The ETrF maps generated by METRICTM allowed us to follow the magnitude and trend in ETrF for major land-use classes during the growing season. The ETrF was lower early in the growing season for agricultural crops and gradually increased as the normalized difference vegetation index of crops increased, thus presenting more surface area over which water could transpire toward the midseason. Comparison of predictions with Bowen ratio energy balance system measurements at Clay Center, NE, showed that METRICTM performed well at the field scale for predicting evapotranspiration from a cornfield. If calibrated properly, the model could be a viable tool to estimate water use in managed ecosystems in subhumid climates at a large scale.

Daily values of net radiation are used in many applications of crop-growth modeling and agricultural water management. Measurements of net radiation are not part of the routine measurement program at many weather stations and are commonly estimated based on other meteorological parameters. Daily values of net radiation were calculated using three net outgoing long-wave radiation models and compared to measured values. Four meteorological datasets representing two climate regimes, a sub-humid, high-latitude environment and a semi-arid mid-latitude environment, were used to test the models. The long-wave radiation models included a physically based model, an empirical model from the literature, and a new empirical model. Both empirical models used only solar radiation as required for meteorological input. The long-wave radiation models were used with model calibration coefficients from the literature and with locally calibrated ones. A measured, average albedo value of 0.25 was used at the high-latitude sites. A fixed albedo value of 0.25 resulted in less bias and scatter at the mid-latitude sites compared to other albedo values. When used with model coefficients calibrated locally or developed for specific climate regimes, the predictions of the physically based model had slightly lower bias and scatter than the empirical models. When used with their original model coefficients, the physically based model had a higher bias than the measurement error of the net radiation instruments used. The performance of the empirical models was nearly identical at all sites. Since the empirical models were easier to use and simpler to calibrate than the physically based models, the results indicate that the empirical models can be used as a good substitute for the physically based ones when available meteorological input data is limited. Model predictions were found to have a higher bias and scatter when using summed calculated hourly time steps compared to using daily input data.

Estimations of evapotranspiration (ET) from natural surfaces are used in a large number of applications such as agricultural water management and water resources planning. Lack of reliable, cheap and easy-to-use instruments, associated with the chaotic and varying nature of the meteorological and plant physiological factors influencing ET cause these estimations to be based on calculated values rather than the measured ones. The two-step approach where ET from a reference crop is calculated and multiplied by empirical crop coefficients to obtain ET from a crop has gained wide acceptance. Daily coefficients for a winter wheat crop growing under standard conditions, i.e. not short of water and growing under optimal agronomic conditions, were estimated for a cold sub-humid climate regime. One of the two methods used to estimate ET from a reference crop required net radiation (Rn) as input. Two sets of coefficients were used for calculating Rn. Weather data from a meteorological station was used to estimate Rn and ET from the reference crop. The winter wheat ET was measured using an eddy covariance system during the main parts of the growing seasons 2004 and 2005. The meteorological data and field measurements were quality controlled and discarded from the analysis if flagged for errors. Daily values of ET from the reference crop and winter wheat calculated from hourly values were used to calculate the crop coefficients. Average daily crop coefficients were in the 1.1-1.15 range during mid-season with standard deviations ranging from 0.13 to 0.23 for both years. These values exceed values used in some sub-humid climate regime studies, but agree well with values from the international literature.

Albedo, Net Radiation, Prediction, Surface Radiation balance. Temperate climate regime