Comparative assessment of different reference evapotranspiration models towards a fit calibration for arid and...

The enhancement of water efficiency requires controlling the high demand for irrigated agriculture which depends on improving the capabilities to accurately simulate the water cycle and its components. Among these, evapotranspiration is widely studied to estimate reference evapotranspiration (ET₀) but the performance and accuracy of the estimates vary. Moreover, these estimates require some hardly available or misrepresentative meteorological data which lead, mainly in arid and semi-arid areas, to errors and inaccuracies. Here, ET₀ of five empirical temperature-based estimates are compared to the standard FAO Penman-Monteith estimate (ET_0-PM) under the representative and wide-ranging settings of 22 weather stations of Morocco. We found a significant positive correlation between ET_0-PM and solar radiation, average and maximum air temperatures. We have determined that the Dorji estimate shows relatively better precision and stability while it requires advanced calibration to accommodate arid and semi-arid conditions. After hundreds of calibration repetitions, we concluded a new estimate (ET_0-Hadria) which demonstrates an overall improvement in the quality and precision of ET₀ assessment, mainly in flat areas. This estimate improved the precision and enhanced the precision in almost 68% of the stations. This simple calibrated estimate is an accurate, improved, and transferable tool achieved through a precise methodical process of selection and configuration.