An approach to estimate the evapotranspiration using NOAA/AVHRR DATA

Evapotranspiration (ET) is continued process wherein moisture from soil and vegetated surface is transferred to the atmosphere. Changes in evapotranspiration are likely to have large impacts on terrestrial vegetation. Evapotranspiration is a seasonally varying property at a given place; changes in it reflect the status of soil moisture and terrestrial vegetation. Through water balance, ET can include major shifts in vegetative patterns and or its condition leading to climate change. Therefore, in this paper, it is attempted to estimate the evapotranspiration over various land cover using National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)/ Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) data at coarse spatial resolution of 1.1 km. For this purpose, a semi-empirical model has been proposed to estimate the ET. Regression analysis has been carried out to develop an empirical relation between individual land cover surface temperature and ET, which will be helpful to know the effect of each land cover surface temperature on ET. In which, it is observed that surface temperature over grassland is more effective on ET in comparison to other land cover in March 1999 on the Mupfure, Zimbabwe catchment area. This type of estimation will be helpful for climate modeler, climatologists, ecosystem modeler and regional planner.