Abtew Method

The Abtew Method is a remote sensing method for measuring evapotranspiration created by Wossenu Abtew in 1996.Abtew W. Evapotranspiration Measurements and Modeling for Three Wetland Systems in South Florida. J. Am. Water Resour. Assn. 1996;32:465–473. It is sometimes referred to as the radiative Abtew model.

Equation

The Abtew Method has advantages over other methods in that it only depends on solar radiation data. This is useful when modeling evaporation in areas where satellite remote sensing solar radiation data is the only data available.{{Cite journal|last1=Melesse|first1=Assefa M.|last2=Abtew|first2=Wossenu|last3=Dessalegne|first3=Tibebe|date=2009-12-01|title=Evaporation Estimation of Rift Valley Lakes: Comparison of Models|journal=Sensors (Basel, Switzerland)|volume=9|issue=12|pages=9603–9615|doi=10.3390/s91209603|issn=1424-8220|pmc=3267190|pmid=22303142|bibcode=2009Senso...9.9603M|doi-access=free}}

The equation is represented as{{Cite journal|title=Evaluation and generalization of radiation-based methods for calculating evaporation|bibcode=2000HyPr...14..339X|url=http://folk.uio.no/chongyux/papers_SCI/HYP_4.pdf|last1=Xu|first1=C. -Y|last2=Singh|first2=V. P.|journal=Hydrological Processes|year=2000|volume=14|issue=2|page=339|doi=10.1002/(SICI)1099-1085(20000215)14:2<339::AID-HYP928>3.3.CO;2-F}}

ET = K\frac{R_{s}}{\lambda }

where

  • ET is evapotranspiration in millimeters/day
  • K is a dimensionless coefficient
  • R_{s} is solar radiation measured in MJ/m^2/day
  • \lambda is latent heat of vaporization in MJ/kg

References