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WATER BUDGETING AND SURFACE HYDROLOGY

Hydrology

Water covers 70% of the Earth's surface.

Hydrology is the study of the movement, distribution, and quality of water on Earth and other

planets, including the hydrologic cycle, water resources and environmental watershed

sustainability. A practitioner of hydrology is a hydrologist, working within the fields of earth or

environmental science, physical geography, geology or civil and environmental engineering.

Domains of hydrology include hydrometeorology, surface hydrology, hydrogeology, drainage

basin management and water quality, where water plays the central role. Oceanography and

meteorology are not included because water is only one of many important aspects within

those fields.

Hydrological research can inform environmental engineering, policy and planning.

The term hydrology is from Greek: , hydr, "water"; and , logos, "study"

History of hydrology
Hydrology has been a subject of investigation and engineering for millennia. For example, about

4000 B.C. the Nile was dammed to improve agricultural productivity of previously barren lands.

Mesopotamian towns were protected from flooding with high earthen walls. Aqueducts were

built by the Greeks and Ancient Romans, while the history of China shows they built irrigation

and flood control works. The ancient Sinhalese used hydrology to build complex irrigation

works in Sri Lanka, also known for invention of the Valve Pit which allowed construction of large

reservoirs, anicuts and canals which still function.

Marcus Vitruvius, in the first century B.C., described a philosophical theory of the hydrologic

cycle, in which precipitation falling in the mountains infiltrated the Earth's surface and led to

streams and springs in the lowlands. With adoption of a more scientific approach, Leonardo da

Vinci and Bernard Palissy independently reached an accurate representation of the hydrologic

cycle. It was not until the 17th century that hydrologic variables began to be quantified.

Pioneers of the modern science of hydrology include Pierre Perrault, Edme Mariotte and

Edmund Halley. By measuring rainfall, runoff, and drainage area, Perrault showed that rainfall

was sufficient to account for flow of the Seine. Marriotte combined velocity and river cross-

section measurements to obtain discharge, again in the Seine. Halley showed that the

evaporation from the Mediterranean Sea was sufficient to account for the outflow of rivers

flowing into the sea.


Advances in the 18th century included the Bernoulli piezometer and Bernoulli's equation, by

Daniel Bernoulli, the Pitot tube. The 19th century saw development in groundwater hydrology,

including Darcy's law, the Dupuit-Thiem well formula, and Hagen-Poiseuille's capillary flow

equation.

Rational analyses began to replace empiricism in the 20th century, while governmental

agencies began their own hydrological research programs. Of particular importance were Leroy

Sherman's unit hydrograph, the infiltration theory of Robert E. Horton, and C.V. Theis's Aquifer

test/equation describing well hydraulics.

Since the 1950s, hydrology has been approached with a more theoretical basis than in the past,

facilitated by advances in the physical understanding of hydrological processes and by the

advent of computers and especially Geographic Information Systems (GIS).

[edit] Hydrologic cycle

Main article: Hydrologic cycle

The central theme of hydrology is that water circulates throughout the Earth through different

pathways and at different rates. The most vivid image of this is in the evaporation of water
from the ocean, which forms clouds. These clouds drift over the land and produce rain. The

rainwater flows into lakes, rivers, or aquifers. The water in lakes, rivers, and aquifers then either

evaporates back to the atmosphere or eventually flows back to the ocean, completing a cycle.

Water changes its state of being several times throughout this cycle.

[edit] Overview

[edit] Branches of hydrology

Chemical hydrology is the study of the chemical characteristics of water.

Ecohydrology is the study of interactions between organisms and the hydrologic cycle.

Hydrogeology is the study of the presence and movement of ground water.

Hydroinformatics is the adaptation of information technology to hydrology and water resources

applications.

Hydrometeorology is the study of the transfer of water and energy between land and water

body surfaces and the lower atmosphere.

Isotope hydrology is the study of the isotopic signatures of water.

Surface hydrology is the study of hydrologic processes that operate at or near Earth's surface.

Drainage basin management covers water-storage, in the form of reservoirs, and flood-

protection.
Water quality includes the chemistry of water in rivers and lakes, both of pollutants and natural

solutes.

[edit] Related topics

Oceanography is the more general study of water in the oceans and estuaries.

Meteorology is the more general study of the atmosphere and of weather, including

precipitation as snow and rainfall.

Limnology is the study of lakes. It covers the biological, chemical, physical, geological, and other

attributes of all inland waters (running and standing waters, both fresh and saline, natural or

man-made).[citation needed]

[edit] Applications of hydrology

Determining the water balance of a region.

Determining the agricultural water balance.

Designing riparian restoration projects.

Mitigating and predicting flood, landslide and drought risk.

Real-time flood forecasting and flood warning.

Designing irrigation schemes and managing agricultural productivity.

Part of the hazard module in catastrophe modeling.


Providing drinking water.

Designing dams for water supply or hydroelectric power generation.

Designing bridges.

Designing sewers and urban drainage system.

Analyzing the impacts of antecedent moisture on sanitary sewer systems.

Predicting geomorphological changes, such as erosion or sedimentation.

Assessing the impacts of natural and anthropogenic environmental change on water resources.

Assessing contaminant transport risk and establishing environmental policy guidelines.

[edit] Hydrologic measurements

Measurement is fundamental for assessing water resources and understanding the processes

involved in the hydrologic cycle. Because the hydrologic cycle is so diverse, hydrologic

measurement methods span many disciplines: including soils, oceanography, atmospheric

science, geology, geophysics and limnology, to name a few. Here, hydrologic measurement

methods are organized by hydrologic sub-disciplines. Each of these subdisciplines is addressed

briefly with a practical discussion of the methods used to date and a bibliography of

background information.

Quantifying groundwater flow and transport[citation needed]


Aquifer characterization[citation needed]

Flow direction

Piezometer - groundwater pressure and, by inference, groundwater depth (see: aquifer test)

Conductivity, storativity, transmisivity

Geophysical methods

Vadose zone characterization[citation needed]

Infiltration

Infiltrometer - infiltration

Soil moisture

Capacitance probe-soil moisture

Time domain reflectometer - soil moisture

Tensiometer - soil moisture

Solute sampling

Geophysical methods

Quantifying surface water flow and transport[citation needed]

Direct and indirect discharge measurements

Stream gauge - stream flow (see: discharge (hydrology))


Tracer techniques

Chemical transport

Sediment transport and erosion

Stream-aquifer exchange

Quantifying exchanges at the land-atmosphere boundary[citation needed]

Precipitation

Bulk rain events

Disdrometer - precipitation characteristics

Radar - cloud properties, rain rate estimation, hail and snow detection

Rain gauge - rain and snowfall

Satellite - rainy area identification, rain rate estimation, land-cover/land-use, soil moisture

Sling psychrometer - humidity

Snow, hail and ice

Dew, mist and fog

Evaporation

from water surfaces

Evaporation -Symon's evaporation pan


from plant surfaces

through the boundary layer

Transpiration

Natural ecosystems

Agronomic ecosystems

Momentum

Heat flux

Energy budgets

Uncertainty analyses

Remote sensing of hydrologic processes[citation needed]

Land based sensors

Airborne Sensors

Satellite sensors

Water quality

Main article: Water quality

[citation needed]

Sample collection
In-situ methods

Physical measurements (includes sediment concentration)

Collection of samples to quantify Organic Compounds

Collection of samples to quantify Inorganic Compounds

Analysis of aqueous Organic Compounds

Analysis of aqueous Inorganic Compounds

Microbiological sampling and analysis

Integrating measurement and modeling

Budget analyses

Parameter estimation

Scaling in time and space

Data assimilation

Quality control of data see for example Double mass analysis

[edit] Hydrological prediction

Observations of hydrologic processes are used to make predictions of the future behaviour of

hydrologic systems (water flow, water quality). One of the major current concerns in hydrologic
research is "Prediction in Ungauged Basins" (PUB), i.e. in basins where no or only very few data

exist.

[edit] Statistical hydrology

By analysing the statistical properties of hydrologic records, such as rainfall or river flow,

hydrologists can estimate future hydrologic phenomena, assuming the characteristics of the

processes remain unchanged. When making assessments of how often relatively rare events

will occur, analyses are made in terms of the return period of such events. Other quantities of

interest include the average flow in a river, in a year or by season.

These estimates are important for engineers and economists so that proper risk analysis can be

performed to influence investment decisions in future infrastructure and to determine the yield

reliability characteristics of water supply systems. Statistical information is utilised to formulate

operating rules for large dams forming part of systems which include agricultural, industrial and

residential demands.

[edit] Hydrological modeling


Hydrological models are simplified, conceptual representations of a part of the hydrologic cycle.

They are primarily used for hydrological prediction and for understanding hydrological

processes. Two major types of hydrological models can be distinguished:[citation needed]

Models based on data. These models are black box systems, using mathematical and statistical

concepts to link a certain input (for instance rainfall) to the model output (for instance runoff).

Commonly used techniques are regression, transfer functions, and system identification. The

simplest of these models may be linear models, but it is common to deploy non-linear

components to represent some general aspects of a catchment's response without going

deeply into the real physical processes involved. An example of such an aspect is the well-

known behaviour that a catchment will respond much more quickly and strongly when it is

already wet than when it is dry..

Models based on process descriptions. These models try to represent the physical processes

observed in the real world. Typically, such models contain representations of surface runoff,

subsurface flow, evapotranspiration, and channel flow, but they can be far more complicated.

These models are known as deterministic hydrology models. Deterministic hydrology models

can be subdivided into single-event models and continuous simulation models.

Recent research in hydrological modeling tries to have a more global approach to the

understanding of the behaviour of hydrologic systems to make better predictions and to face

the major challenges in water resources management.


[edit] Hydrologic transport

Main article: Hydrologic transport model

Water movement is a significant means by which other material, such as soil or pollutants, are

transported from place to place. Initial input to receiving waters may arise from a point source

discharge or a line source or area source, such as surface runoff. Since the 1960s rather

complex mathematical models have been developed, facilitated by the availability of high

speed computers. The most common pollutant classes analyzed are nutrients, pesticides, total

dissolved solids and sediment.

[edit] See also

Aquatic chemistry

Civil engineering

Climatology

Environmental engineering

Environmental engineering science

Geomorphology

Hydrography
Hydraulic engineering, a sub-discipline of civil engineering concerned with the flow and

conveyance of fluids, principally water

Physical geography

Hydropower

International Hydrological Programme

Hydrology (agriculture)

Water distribution on Earth

NashSutcliffe model efficiency coefficient

WEAP (Water Evaluation And Planning) software to model catchment hydrology from climate

and land use data

THE HYDROLOGIC BUDGET

A water budget comprised of the components of the hydrologic cycle can be formulated. It is

an accounting of the inflow, outflow and storage of water in a designated hydrologic system.

The United States Geological Survey (USGS) has estimated the hydrologic budget for the

coterminous United States. About 40,000 billion gallons per day (bgd) of water passes over the

nation as vapor. Of this amount, about 4,200 bgd (roughly 30 in. or 76 cm per year) falls to the

earth as precipitation. About two-thirds of this amount (2,750 bgd) is returned to the

atmosphere by evaporation or by transpiration. The remaining 1,450 bgd is accounted for by


storage; flows to Canada, Mexico, and the oceans; evaporation from surface-water storage; and

consumptive use. Of the 1,450 bgd that could potentially be used, only about 675 bgd is

5
considered to be available in 95 out of 100 years.

The development of an equation for the water budget is straightforward. For a designated time

period, it provides for balancing the gains and losses of water with the quantities of water

stored in the region (a continuity equation).

The variables in the water budget equation are: precipitation P, Runoff R, Interception I,

Evaporation E, Transpiration T, Evapotranspiration ET, Groundwater G, and letting S stand for

change in storage, a hydrologic budget can be derived. Inflows to the region are denoted as

positive quantities and outflows as negative ones. Subscripts s and g indicate surface and

underground components respectively.

For surface flow, the hydrologic budget can be written as:

P + R1 - R2 + Rg - Es - Ts - I = Ss

where precipitation, surface-water inflow, and groundwater appearing as surface water (Rg) are

inflows; surface-water outflow, evaporation, and infiltration are outflows; and all variables are

volumes per unit of time.


For underground flow, the hydrologic budget can be written as:

I + G1 - G2 - Rg - Eg - Tg = Ss

where infiltration and groundwater inflow are inflows; groundwater outflow, groundwater

appearing as surface water, evaporation, and transpiration are outflows. The combined

hydrologic budget for a region is derived by summing the two previous equations:

P - (R2 - R1) - (Es + Eg) - (Ts + Tg) - (G2 - G1) = (Ss + Sg)

If the subscripts are dropped and the quantities in parentheses are taken as net changes, the

equation reduces to:

P - R - E - T - G = S

This is the fundamental equation of hydrology. It is the basis for all hydrologic modeling.

Various applications of this important equation are referred to in later chapters. One of its uses

is in calculating the combined evaporation and transpiration, or evapotranspiration (ET), for a

region when estimates of other variables in the equation can be reasonably made. For

example, in large river basins, (measured in thousands of square miles or kilometers),

groundwater system boundaries often follow surface-water divides. In cases where this
assumption can be considered valid, the groundwater flux into and out of the region can be

assumed equal to zero (G = 0). In addition, over a long period of time (usually five or more

years), seasonal excesses and deficits in storage often tend to balance out in large watersheds,

and in such cases the average condition for S may sometimes be assumed to be equal to zero.

Under these two assumptions, the hydrologic equation becomes

P - R - ET = 0

and by knowing P and R, a rough estimate of ET can be obtained.

To solve the hydrologic budget equation in terms of any one of its variables, reasonable

estimates of the other variables must be made. But this is not always possible or easily done.

When data are lacking on variables of concern, simplifying assumptions can sometimes be

made, but there is no substitute for a credible data base.

SOIL-WATER BUDGET

Basin-averaged values of "surplus" water were estimated for 167 sub-basins of the Niger River

basin for two scenarios: long term average climatic conditions and conditions during a historical

period (short term) representative of dry conditions, July 1983 to Dec. 1990. The phrases long

term and short term will be used throughout the remainder of this document to refer to these

two cases. Surplus is water which does not evaporate or remain in soil storage and includes

both surface and sub-surface runoff.


surplus = precipitation - evaporation - (change in storage)

Part I of this report to FAO/UNESCO describes the methodolgy and results for soil-water

budgeting. Part II provides a technical description of how computations were made and

includes a list of files and programs and there locations on the project CD-ROM. Part II has not

been converted to HTML and has not been placed on our HTTP server because the tedious

details are not expected to be of general interest (contact the author if you would like more

details). A budgeting exercise created for the GIS in Water Resources class is available for those

who wish to see how the calculations work.

Despite numerous uncertainties associated with simple soil-water budget model like the one

used in this study, many researchers have applied this type of model to problems ranging from

catchment scale studies to the global water balance and climate change scenerios

(Thornthwaite, 1948; Budyko, 1956; Manabe, 1969; Mather, 1978; Alley, 1984; Willmott et al.,

1985; Mintz and Walker, 1993; Mintz and Serafini, 1992). The popularity of this approach in

hydrologic studies is most likely due to its simplicity. The simple bucket model used here

requires minimal input data : precipitation, temperature, net-radiation, and soil-water holding

capacity. For catchment scale applications, the soil-water budget approach for predicting runoff

has shown reasonable agreement with measured annual flows, but has not shown good
agreement with monthly flows (Mather, 1978). Although the soil-water budget roughly

accounts for the soil storage effects on the time distribution of surface and sub-surface runoff,

it has not demonstrated accurate prediction of monthly flow volumes.

For the Niger Basin project, a surface water routing model takes computed surplus as input and

optimizes overland flow and streamflow loss parameters to predict monthly flows. For more

information about the surface water routing model, link to Ye's Map-based Surface Water

Modeling page.

Three difficult questions involved with simple soil-water budget calculations that are discussed

to in this document are how to deal with situations when inadequate daily data are available

and only monthly data can be used, how to derive spatially distributed estimates of climatic

variables from point calculations, and how to estimate potential evaporation. Section IIc

discusses time stepping (daily vs. monthly). Section V describes an approach for generating

climate surfaces from point data and explores the sensitivity of water surplus calculations to

two methods of estimating potential evaporation. Sections I-IV provide background material

and a detailed description of the soil-water budget methodology. Sections VI briefly describes

results.

II. THE SOIL-WATER BUDGET


Where detailed data about soil layers, depth to groundwater, and vegetation are not available,

hydrologists have often resorted to simple bucket models and budgeting schemes to model

near-surface hydrology. The soil-water budget is a simple accounting scheme used to predict

soil-water storage, evaporation, and water surplus. A typical budgeting time step is one day.

Surplus is the fraction of precipitation that exceeds potential evapotranspiration and is not

stored in the soil. The simple model used here does not distinguish between surface and

subsurface runoff, so surplus includes both. For the Niger project, the main purpose of

calculating the water budget is to estimate surplus, which serves as input to groundwater and

surface water flow models. With this in mind, the basic equation for calculating surplus is:

(1)

In Equation 1, S is surplus, P is precipitation, E is evaporation, w is soil moisture, and t is time.

Horizontal motion of water on the land surface or in the soil is not considered by this model.

Snow melt was ignored in the water budget computations for this study because temperatures

throughout the study region remain above freezing throughout the year.

A major source of uncertainty in evaluating Equation 1 is estimating the evaporation.

Estimation of evaporation is based upon knowledge of the potential evapotranspiration,

available water-holding capacity of the soil, and a moisture extraction function. The concepts of
water-holding capacity and the method for evaluating Equation 1 are discussed here, followed

by a more detailed discussion of the potential evapotranspiration concept in Section III.

A. WATER-HOLDING CAPACITY

In order to calculate the soil-water budget, an estimate of the soil's ability to store water is

required. Several terms are used by soil scientists to define the water storage capacities of soils

under different conditions. The field capacity or drained upper limit is defined as the water

content of a soil that has reached equilibrium with gravity after several days of drainage. The

field capacity is a function of soil texture and organic content. The permanent wilting point or

lower limit of available water is defined as the water content at which plants can no longer

extract a health sustaining quantity of water from the soil and begin to wilt. Typical suction

values associated with the field capacity and wilting point are -10 kPa (-0.1 bars) and -1500 kPa

(-15 bars) respectively. Like water content, field capacity and permanent wilting point are

defined on a volume of water per volume of soil basis. Given these two definitions, the water

available for evapotranspiration after drainage ( or the available water-holding capacity ) is

defined as the field capacity minus the permanent wilting point. Table 1 gives some typical

values for available water-holding capacity.

Table 1: Water Retention Properties for Agricultural Soils


(Values Taken from ASCE,1990, Table 2.6, p. 21.)

Texture Class Field Capacity Wilting Point Available Capacity

Sand 0.12 0.04 0.08

Loamy Sand 0.14 0.06 0.08

Sandy Loam 0.23 0.10 0.13

Loam 0.26 0.12 0.15

Silt Loam 0.30 0.15 0.15

Silt 0.32 0.15 0.17

Silty Clay Loam 0.34 0.19 0.15

Silty Clay 0.36 0.21 0.15

Clay 0.36 0.21 0.15

For budgeting calculations, it is useful to know the total available water-holding capacity in a

soil profile. This value is typically expressed in mm and can be obtained by integrating the

available water-holding capacity over the effective depth of the soil layer. A one meter soil
layer with a uniform available water-holding capacity of 0.15 has a total available water-holding

capacity of 150 mm. For the remainder of this paper, the term water-holding capacity means

total available water-holding capacity in units of mm. Soil-water storage (mm) is denoted by w

and water-holding capacity is denoted with w*. A large water-holding capacity implies a large

annual evapotranspiration and small annual runoff relative to a small water-holding capacity

under the same climatic conditions.

B. ESTIMATING ACUTAL EVAPOTRANSPIRATION

To estimate the actual evapotranspiration in the soil-water budget method many investigators

have used a soil-moisture extraction function or coefficient of evapotranspiration beta which

relates the actual rate of evapotranspiration to the potential rate of evapotranspiration based

on some function of the current soil moisture content and moisture retention properties of the

soil.

E = beta * PE (2)
Dyck, 1983, Table 1, (reprinted in Shuttleworth, 1993, Table 4.4.6) provides a summary of some

moisture extraction functions used by different investigators. Mintz and Walker, 1993, Figure 5,

also illustrates several moisture extraction functions. Many researchers agree that soils show

the general pattern of behavior that moisture is extracted from the soil at the potential rate

until some critical moisture content is reached when evapotranspiration is not longer

controlled by meteorological conditions. Below this critical point, there is a linear decline in soil

moisture extraction until the wilting point is reached. This type of behavior is illustrated by

Shuttleworth, 1993, Figure 4.4.3 p. 4.46 and Dingman, 1994, Figure 7-21. Shuttleworth, 1993,

notes that the critical moisture content divided by the field capacity is typically between 0.5

and 0.8. The type of moisture extraction function just described is commonly applied to daily

potential evaporation values. A simpler function, beta = w/w*, has been applied to monthly

values.

There are several drawbacks to using simple soil moisture extraction functions. Mintz and

Walker, 1993, cite field studies that show beta may vary with potential evapotranspiration for a

given soil wetness and beta may also vary with leaf-area index. In addition, the spatial variation

of water-holding capacity is difficult to determine. A new and possibly better approach to

determining the relationship between plant transpiration and potential evapotranspiration is to

correlate beta with satellite-derived indices of vegetation activity so that beta will reflect plant

growth stage and the spatial vegetation patterns. Gutman and Rukhovetz, 1996, investigate this

possibility. Their approach still requires an estimate of potential evapotranspiration.


C. BUDGETING SOIL-MOISTURE STORAGE TO YIELD SURPLUS

Soil-water budget calculations are commonly made using monthly or daily rainfall totals

because of the way data are recorded. Computing the water balance on a monthly basis

involves the unrealistic assumption that rain falls at constant low intensity throughout the

month, and consequently surplus estimates made using monthly values are typically lower than

those made using daily values. Particularly in dry locations, the mean potential evaporation for

a given month may be higer than the mean precipitation, yet there is observed runoff, and

budgeting with monthly values may yield zero surplus. For this reason, the use of daily values is

preferred over monthly values when feasible. In this study, daily rainfall records were provided

by FAO for a number of stations in the Niger basin; however, the spatial coverage of these

stations is sparse in some areas, and it is difficult to interpolate daily rainfall over space.

Because of the difficulty in estimating daily rainfall at our regularly spaced computational

points, and because a consistent basis for comparison is needed between the short term case

(for which daily data are available) and the long term case (only monthly data are available),

monthly data were used in this study. However, the use of monthly data does not yield enough

surplus to match observed river flows in some areas of the Niger basin even with the

assumption of zero overland flow and stream losses. To resolve this problem, a modification

was made to the commonly used bucket model in which it is typically assumed that no surplus

is generated until the soil is completely saturated with water; this assumption is not consistent

with situations where the rainfall rate exceeds the infiltration rate of the soil. In our modified
model, a fraction of the precipitation is extracted and declared runoff, before remaining

precipitation is passed to the soil. This extraction of precipitation is represented by the P*alpha

term in Equation 3 below. This scheme generates more runoff, enough to satisfy mass balance

constraints in most areas of the Niger basin. Without this term, the model will predict zero

runoff during many months of the year when some observed streamflow actually occurs. The

runoff extraction term roughly accounts for "event" or "quick" flow that cannot be modeled

using monthly averaged values.

Equation 3 describes how soil moisture storage is computed.

(3)Wi=Wi-1+P-Pi-1-PEi-1

In Equation 3, w(i) is the current soil moisture, w(i-1) is the soil moisture in the previous time

step, P is precipitation, PE is potential evaporation, alpha is the runoff extraction function, and

beta is the soil-moisture extraction function. With monthly data, computations are made on a

quasi-daily basis by assuming that precipitation and potential evapotranspiration for a given

day are equal to their respective monthly values divided by the number of days in the current

month. Several conditions apply when evaluating Equation 3: If w(i) drops below zero, then set

w(i) equal to 0.01; if w(i)>w* where w* is the water-holding capacity, then the surplus for that
day is w(i)-w*+P*alpha.

The soil-moisture extraction function beta=w/w* was used for this study. Since there is no

precedent for the use of a runoff extraction function (alpha), the formulation of this function

was more speculative and deserves further study. In the mean time, a simple relationship,

alpha = w/w*, was used and yielded enough surplus to satisfy mass balance constraints in the

surface flow routing model.

D. BALANCING SOIL MOISTURE

If the initial soil moisture is unknown, which is typically the case, a balancing routine is used to

force the net change in soil moisture from the beginning to the end of a specified balancing

period (N time steps) to zero. To do this, the initial soil moisture is set to the water-holding

capacity and budget calculations are made up to the time period (N+1). The initial soil moisture

at time 1 (w(1)) is then set equal to the soil moisture at time N+1 (w(N+1)) and the budget is re-

computed until the difference (w(1) - w(N+1)) is less than a specified tolerance.

E. THE SPATIAL SOIL-WATER BUDGET


The soil-water budget is most easily applied at single points in space dictated by the location of

climate stations where water-holding capacity can be measured or estimated, but the result of

these point calculations must be interpolated over space in order to get a surplus volume. An

alternative approach taken in this study was to use pre-computed climate, net radiation, and

water-holding capacity grids, augmented with climate station measurements, to calculate the

soil-water budget at each point on a 0.5 by 0.5 grid. Using a single value for precipitation,

temperature, and net radiation in each 0.5 cell seems reasonable at the monthly time scale.

The water-holding capacity may vary considerably within each 0.5 cell, and the value used in

budgeting calculations is only an average property of the cell.

III. POTENTIAL EVAPOTRANSPIRATION

One aspect of the soil-water budget that involves significant uncertainty and ambiguity is

estimating potential evapotranspiration. Just the concept of potential evapotranspiration is

ambiguous by itself, as discussed in the next section. Due to limited meteorological data, two

simple methods for estimating potential evapotranspiration were considered for the Niger

basin study, the Priestley-Taylor and Thornthwaite methods. For the short term simulation (July

1983 to December 1990), a global net radiation data set obtained from NASA facilitated making

potential evapotranspiration estimates using the Priestley-Taylor method. For reasons

discussed later in this paper, the Priestley-Taylor method is considered superior to the

Thornthwaite approach; however, it is simpler to apply the Thornthwaite approach to long term
average conditions and to selected historical periods because the global net radiation data used

in this study are only available from July 1983 to June 1991. It would be nice to have consistent

methods for estimating potential evapotranspiration over different time periods so that fair

comparisons can be made. Because the Thornthwaite method is more easily applied over

different historical time periods, determining whether there are significant differences between

predicted runoff using the Priestley-Taylor and Thornthwaite methods is an important question.

The conclusion is that there are significant differences and the Priestley-Taylor approach is

better. For this study, the average net radiation over the eight year period when net radiation

data were available was taken to be the long term average net radiation. Both of the Priestley-

Taylor and Thornthwaite methods perform poorly in arid regions and the significance of this is

briefly discussed.

A. POTENTIAL EVAPORATION VS. POTENTIAL EVAPOTRANSPIRATION

Thornthwaite, 1948, first used the concept of potential evapotranspiration as a meaningful

measure of moisture demand to replace two common surrogates for moisture demand

temperature and pan evaporation. Potential evapotranspiration refers to the maximum rate of

evapotranspiration from a large area completely and uniformly covered with growing

vegetation with an unlimited moisture supply. There is a distinction between the term potential

evapotranspiration and potential evaporation from a free water surface because factors such as
stomatal impedence and plant growth stage influence evapotranspiration but do not influence

potential evaporation from free water surfaces.

Brutsaert, 1982, notes on pp. 214 and 221 the remarkable similarity in the literature among

observations of water losses from short vegetated surfaces and free water surfaces. He poses a

possible explanation that the stomatal impedance to water vapor diffusion in plants may be

counterbalanced by larger roughness values. Significant differences have been observed

between potential evapotranspiration from tall vegetation and potential evaporation from free

water surfaces. The commonly used a value of 1.26 in the Priestley-Taylor equation was derived

using observations over both open water and saturated land surfaces. For the most part, the

term potential evapotranspiration will be used predominantly in this paper and, as used,

includes water loss directly from the soil and/or through plant transpiration.

An additional ambiguity in using the potential evapotranspiration concept is that potential

evapotranspiration is often computed based on meteorological data obtained under non-

potential conditions (Brutsaert, p. 214). In this study, temperature and net radiation

measurements used for calculating potential evapotranspiration in dry areas and for dry

periods will be different than the values that would have been observed under potential

conditions. The fact that the Thornthwaite and Priestley-Taylor methods have exhibited weak

performance at arid sites is related to this ambiguity because the assumptions under which the

expressions were derived break down. Poor performance in arid regions is highly relevant to
the Niger Basin study because of large arid areas in the northern part of the basin. This problem

will be addressed a bit further during the detailed discussions of each method.

Although not used directly in this study, a brief review of the widely used Penman equation

serves as a good starting point for discussing the estimation of potential evapotranspiration.

B. PENMAN COMBINATION METHOD FOR ESTIMATING POTENTIAL EVAPORATION

Two requirements for evaporation to occur are an energy input and a mechanism for the

transport of water vapor away from saturated surface. In light of this, two traditional

approaches to modeling evaporation are an energy budget approach and an aerodynamic

approach. With the energy budget approach, the net radiation available at the surface

(shortwave absorbed plus longwave emitted) must be partitioned between latent heat flux and

sensible heat flux, assuming that ground heat flux is negligible. This partitioning is typically

achieved using the Bowen ratio which is the ratio of sensible heat flux to latent heat flux.

Approximating the Bowen ratio typically requires measurements of temperature and humidity

at two heights. The aerodynamic approach typically involves a vapor transport coefficient times

the vapor pressure gradient between the saturated surface and an arbitrary measurement

height. Determination of the vapor transport coefficient typically requires measurements of

wind speed, humidity, and temperature. Brutsaert, Chow et al., and Dingman, present
equations for calculating the Bowen ratio and vapor transport coefficients. Without simplifying

assumptions, energy budget and the aerodynamic methods require meteorological

measurements at two levels.

In 1944, Penman combined the energy budget and aerodynamic approaches. Penman's

derivation eliminates the need for measuring water surface temperature; only the air

temperature is required. The resulting equation is as follows:

(4)

(5)

(6)

Rn is net radiation (typical units are W/m2), lv is latent heat of vaporization (J/kg), row is

density of water (kg/m3), K(u) is a mass transfer coefficient, es is saturated vapor pressure at air

temperature, and e is the actual vapor pressure.

The Penman equation is a weighted average of the rates of evaporation due to net radiation

(Er) and turbulent mass transfer (Ea). Provided that model assumptions are met and adequate
input data are available, various forms of the Penman equation yield the most accurate

estimates of evaporation from saturated surfaces. The "Evapotranspiration and Irrigation Water

Requirements Manual," ASCE, 1990, offers a performance comparison of twenty popular

methods for estimating potential evaporation. The top six rated methods in ASCE, 1990, are

forms of the Penman equation (p.249).

C. SIMPLER METHODS FOR ESTIMATING POTENTIAL EVAPORATION

Due to lack of data, it is not feasible to use the complete Penman equation to make potential

evaporation estimates for the Niger Basin study. Because of their simplicity, the Thornthwaite

and Priestley-Taylor methods for estimating potential evaporation are widely used in regional

and global scale climatic water budget studies. In the Niger Basin project, the only input data

currently available with adequate spatial coverage are temperature and net radiation. While

other simple temperature and/or radiation methods are available and considered briefly later

in this report, the Thornthwaite and Priestley-Taylor methods are the focus of this study.

IV. DESCRIPTION OF INPUT DATA

A. RADIATION DATA
A new global radiation data set makes using the Priestley-Taylor method a feasible option for

estimating potential evapotranspiration at the scale of this study. Surface longwave and

shortwave radiation flux estimates are available for a 96 month period extending from July

1983 to June 1991. The data are given on the ISSCP equal-area grid which has a spatial

resolution of 2.5 at the equator. Darnell et al, 1992, assert that recent (last decade) advances in

input data and flux estimation algorithms have greatly improved the ability to assess the

radiation budget on a global scale. Improvements in the input data come from the International

Satellite Cloud Climatology Project (ISCCP) and the Earth Radiation Budget Experiment (ERBE).

According to Darnell et al., 1995, longwave flux estimates are accurate to within +/- 25 W/m2

and Whitlock et al. estimate the accuracy of shortwave estimates to be +/- 20 W/m2. The

energy required to evaporate 1 mm/day of water is about 30 W/m2.

B. CLIMATE DATA

Global data sets of mean monthly temperature and precipitation interpolated to a 0.5 by 0.5

grid were obtained from Cort Willmott at the University of Delaware. These data are from the

"Global Air Temperature and Precipitation Data Archive" compiled by D. Legates and C.

Willmott. These monthly precipitation estimates were previously corrected for gage bias. Data

from 24,635 terrestrial stations and 2,223 oceanic grid points were used to estimate the

precipitation field. The climatology is largely representative of the years 1920 to 1980 with

more weight given to recent ("data-rich") years (Legates and Willmott, 1990).
Daily precipitation and temperature estimates for stations around the globe are available on a

"Global Daily Summary" CD-ROM produced by the National Climatic Data Center in Asheville,

NC. The period of record for these data is 1977-1991 although not all stations have records for

this entire period. The density of climate stations is quite high in some parts of the Niger River

Basin but low in other areas. In addition, daily rainfall data for 191 stations in Niger and 41

stations in Mali were provided on floppy disk by FAO. The period of record for these stations

varies, but the most recent date with available records from these stations is December 31,

1990. A more detailed discussion of the data is provided in Part II of this report.

C. WATER-HOLDING CAPACITY DATA

A grid of water-holding capacity estimates was provided by FAO for the Niger Basin project.

Values in this grid were compiled by an expert at FAO using information from the CD-ROM

Digitized Soil Map of the World (FAO, UNESCO, 1974-1981). There 6 unique values of water-

holding capacity (mm) in this grid: 0, 10, 30, 75, 125, and 200. The value zero is assigned to

water bodies.

V. SPECIAL ISSUES

A. CREATING RAINFALL AND TEMPERATURE SURFACES FROM POINT DATA (SHORT-TERM CASE)
1. Creating precipitation surfaces

Monthly time series tables of precipitation and potential evaporation for the period July 1983

to December 1990 were estimated at each point on a regular mesh of 0.5 degree cells. This

computational mesh was selected because long term mean monthly estimates of rainfall and

temperature at these points were obtained from C.J. Willmott at the University of Delaware.

The mean monthly values from Willmott were used in conjunction with thiessen polygons to

create 0.5 surfaces of precipitation and potential evaporation for each month in the short-term

study period. The basic methodology is described here and more details are provided in Part II

of this report.

The initial approach for creating monthly precipitation surfaces was as follows: (1) Created

thiessen polygons based on selected precipitation stations and used these polygons to

associate each 0.5 computational cell with a given station. (2) Calculate the monthly value in

cell i and historical month m with the following equation:

(7)

The subscript i indicates cell index where precipitation is being estimated and g indicates value

at the gage. The superscript "mon" indicates a monthly average value obtained from the
Legates and Willmott climatology. If the mean value at the gage is zero, then the

ratio is set equal to one. The idea is to try to say something about the spatial

distribution of rainfall in a historical month based on a spatial distribution of mean monthly

rainfall created by an expert in rainfall interpolation. It turns out that this method yields poor

results for dry months because the ratio of the mean value at a cell i to the mean value at the

gage can be excessively high or low when dealing with small rainfall totals. To rectify this

problem in a second round of calculations, the ratio of mean annual values at cell i to mean

annual values at the gage were used. Using annual values, there is one adjustment ratio for

each cell instead of 12 and the new equation is as follows.

(8)

An attempt to distribute daily rainfall values in a similar manner to the monthly values was

made, but in locations where our precipitation gage network is sparse, this involves the poor

assumption that individual rainfall events occur over very large areas. Thus, daily calculations

made using this approach were not put to use as input to the flow simulation model. One

approach to dealing with this problem would be to use a library of dimensionless daily time

series distributions to distribute monthly rainfall totals for each cell throughout a month;
however, because the merits of adopting this approach are unclear and because it involves a

large degree of complication, it was not pursued.

B. COMPARISON OF PE ESTIMATION METHODS

1. Radiation Methods

a. Priestley-Taylor

In 1972, C.B. Priestley and R.J. Taylor showed that, under certain conditions, knowledge of net

radiation and ground dryness may be sufficient to determine vapor and sensible heat fluxes at

the Earth's surface. When large land areas (on the order of hundreds of kilometers) become

saturated, Priestley and Taylor reasoned that net radiation is the dominant constraint on

evaporation and analyzed numerous data sets to show that the advection or mass-transfer

term in the Penman combination equation tends toward a constant fraction of the radiation

term under "equilibrium" conditions. According to Brutsaert, 1982, Slatyer and McIlroy, 1961,

first defined the concept of equilibrium evaporation as a state that is reached when a moving

air mass has been in contact with a saturated surface over a long fetch and approaches vapor

saturation -- thus causing the advection term in the Penman equation to go to zero. Both

Slatyer-McIlroy and Priestley-Taylor considered the radiation term in the Penman equation to

be a lower limit for the evaporation from a moist surface. The form of the evaporation equation

developed by Priestley and Taylor is as follows, a constant (alpha) times Penman's radiation

term.
(9)

Equating this expression to the combination equation reveals that the advection term must be

a constant fraction of the radiation term if alpha is a constant.

(10)

(11)

Using micro-meteorological observations over ocean surfaces and over saturated land-surfaces

following rainfall, Priestley and Taylor came up with a best-estimate of 1.26 for the parameter

alpha. The fact that alpha is greater than one indicates that true advection-free conditions do

not exist. Since 1972, several other researchers have confirmed that alpha values in the range

1.26-1.28 are consistent with observations under similar conditions. Some researchers have

found significantly lower values for the alpha coefficient, but these coefficients were found for

different types of surfaces (i.e. tall vegetation or bare soil as opposed to grass and open water).

There have also been indications that the alpha coefficient may exhibit significant seasonal

variation (Brutsaert, p. 221).


Priestley-Taylor estimates have shown good agreement with lysimeter measurements for both

peak and seasonal evapotranspiration in humid climates; however, the Priestley-Taylor

equation substantially underestimates both peak and seasonal evapotranspiration in arid

climates. The advection of dry air to irrigated crops is likely to be greater in arid climates

because large saturated areas are rare, resulting in a more dominant role of the advection

term. A higher alpha coefficient may be required in arid climates (ASCE, 1990). Based on arid

sites studied in ASCE, 1990, a value of alpha=1.7-1.75 seems more appropriate for arid regions.

Shuttleworth, 1993, states that the Priestley-Taylor method is the "preferred radiation-based

method for estimating reference crop evapotranspiration." Shuttleworth, 1993, notes that

errors using the Priestley-Taylor method are on the order of 15% or 0.75 mm/day, whichever is

greater, and that estimates should only be made for periods of ten days or longer.

b. Other Radiation Methods

The Jensen-Haise, FAO-24 Radiation, and the Turc method are all classified as radiation-based

methods in ASCE, 1990, but the FAO-24 Radiation Method and the Turc method require basic

information beyond temperature and net radiation mean humidity and mean wind speed for

FAO-24 and mean humidity for the Turc method. The Jensen-Haise method does receive an

overall ranking higher than the Priestley-Taylor method in ASCE 1990, Table 7.20; however, the

Priestley-Taylor equation outranks the Jensen-Haise equation for humid climates. Predicted

surplus volumes are much more sensitive to the accuracy of the potential evaporation estimate

in humid climates than arid climates; therefore, the Priestley-Taylor approach is considered a
better choice than Jensen-Haise for our application. It is also noteworthy that the Jensen-Haise,

FAO-24 Radiation, and the Turc method all use the incoming shortwave radiation rather than

net radiation as an input. In theory, net radiation is a better indicator of potential evaporation

than shortwave radiation because variations in albedo and cloudiness have already been taken

into consideration.

2. Temperature Methods

a. Thornthwaite Empirical Approach

Thornthwaite (1948, Wilm et al., 1944) developed an empirical equation for estimating

potential evapotranspiraion from a reference grass surface that requires only mean monthly

temperature and day length estimates as input. The regression equation was developed using

data from lysimeter and small watershed water balance experiments at several sites scattered

throughout the United States. Thornthwaite recognized that there is a more direct physical

relationship between potential evaporation and net radiation than between potential

evaporation and temperature, but foresaw correctly that sufficient radiation measurements or

accurate calculations to reliably estimate potential evaporation would be difficult to come by

for many years to come. Using temperature as a surrogate for net radiation involves the implicit

assumptions that albedo is constant, the rate of evapotranspiration is not influenced by

advection of moist or dry air, and that the Bowen ratio is constant. These conditions do not

exist in arid and semi-arid regions except during short periods after regional rain storms (ASCE,

1990). The comparison and ranking of potential evaporation estimating methods in the ASCE
Manual (Table 7.18) clearly shows the poor performance of the Thornthwaite methodology in

arid climates.

Mintz and Walker discuss the fact that the Thornthwaite equation was developed for

temperatures measured under potential conditions and only represents "true" potential

evaporation when there is no soil moisture stress. Application in locations with soil moisture

stress results in an "apparent" potential evaporation. The energy balance at the land surface

and thus the surface temperature are altered under non-potential conditions. Mintz and

Walker observe that dry areas have higher temperatures than wet areas at the same latitude

and season and develop an empirical equation that relates the potential air temperature to the

measured air temperature. Based upon measured air surface temperatures, the Thornthwaite

method will overestimate the "true" potential evaporation in arid regions. Mintz and Walker

assert that the largest difference between calculated "true" and "apparent" potential

evaporation occurs in the central Sahara where "apparent" is 6.2 mm/day in July and the "true"

is 5.5 mm/day.

Willmott et al., 1985 summarize the Thornthwaite evaporation equations as follows.

Potential evapotranspiration (PE) in (mm/month) without adjustment for day length is

computed with:
(12)

where T is mean surface air temperuture in month i (C) and I is the heat index defined in

Equation 13 below. The exponent a in Equation 12 is a function of the heat index (I).

(13)

(14)

Monthly estimates of potential evapotranspiration calculated with Equation 12 need to be

adjusted for day length because 30 day months and 12 hour days were assumed when this

relationship was developed.

The adjusted potential evaporation accounting for month length and daylight duration is given

by

(15)
where APE is in (mm/month), d is length of the month in days, and h is the duration of daylight

in hours on the fifteenth day of the month.

During the course of this investigation, a FORTRAN code for computing water budgets called

"WATBUG" obtained from Cort J. Willmott at the Universtiy of Delaware (Willmott, 1977) has

been very helpful. The WATBUG code allows for daily or monthly budgeting and includes

subroutines for balancing, computing day length given latitude, and calculating potential

evaporation with the Thornthwaite equation. All or parts of the WATBUG routine have been

used in this investigation, either in their original or modified form. An Avenue script for use

with monthly data that uses the budgeting scheme of Equation 3 has also been written.

b. SCS Blaney-Criddle

This empirical temperature-based method requires only mean monthly temperatures and an

estimate of the monthly percentage of annual daytime hours. Based upon the results in ASCE,

1990, Tables 7.18 and 7.19, this method outperforms the Priestley-Taylor method in all months

and in the peak month for arid regions but exhibits poor performance in humid regions.

3. Results: Thornthwaite Vs. Priestley-Taylor


Figure 1 shows the spatial distribution of monthly average (90 months) potential

evapotranspiration (PE) predicted using the two methods. ( Click here to view all of Figure 1.;

Zoom in on top map , and bottom map in Figure 1.) There are clear differences in the PE spatial

variations. The Priestley-Taylor PE estimates show decreasing trend from high values in the

humid south portions to lower values in the arid north. The Thornthwaite estimates exhibit no

consistent trend. On a basin average, the Thornthwaite PE (136.8 mm/month) is higher than

the Priestley-Taylor PE (114.1 mm/month). Figure 2 shows the variation in monthly PE

throughout the year (7 year average) for the cells identified in Figure 2. ( Click here to view all

of Figure 2.; View top , middle , and bottom charts in Figure 2 respectively.) Moving south to

north, seasonal trends of higher PE in the summer show up. This is related to the fact that most

of the rainfall occurs in the summer and relatively less rainfall occurs during other parts of the

year as you move north. Net radiation is higher in wet months because more solar radiation is

absorbed. Moving south to north, Thornthwaite PE becomes larger relative to Priestley-Taylor

PE. This is the reason that the Thornthwaite method actually yields higher average surplus

despite having a higher basin-average PE (Figure 3). Figure 3 shows a comparison of mean

annual surplus values computed from the soil-water budget using the two different estimates

for PE. ( Click here to view all of Figure 3.; Zoom in on top , middle , and bottom maps in Figure

3 respectively.) Because the Priestley-Taylor PE is higher in the south where all the rainfall

occurs, the actually evaporation estimated using this method is greater and the average surplus

generated is smaller.
The surplus results presented in Figure 3 were computed using a slightly different methodology

than that described in Equation 3. This earlier analysis used the methodology of C.J. Willmott

written in the WATBUG FORTRAN code. The methodology can be summarized as follows:

if (P-PE) < 0 (16)

if (P-PE) > 0 (17)

If wi > w*, then surplus for that day is wi-w* and wi is set equal to w*. In addition to the fact

that it does not inclued the rainfall extraction term, Equation 16 differs from Equation 3

because it involves the assumption that if precipitation is less than potential evaporation then

all precipitation used to satisfy the potential demand is consumed immediately, before having a

chance to enter the soil. This generates less surplus than the approach described in Equation 18

which is the same as Equation 3 without the rainfall extraction term.

(18)

Variables in Equation 18 are subject to the same constraints as in Equation 3.

As of 1992-93, Mintz and Walker used the Thornthwaite approach for PE calculations because

they were skeptical about our knowledge of global net radiation, either from direct

measurements or calculations, and thus didn't envision the application of the Penman, Budyko,

or Priestley-Taylor approaches directly on a global basis. Mintz and Walker indicate that the
Thornthwaite and Priestley-Taylor methods are consistent to within +/- 0.5 mm/day or 15

mm/month in any given month. However, Figure 2 indicates differences of up to 50 mm/month

or more in Cell 3. Recall that the accuracy of the of the radiation fluxes are about +/-20-25

W/m2 which corresponds to about 0.7 mm/day or 21 mm/month. Shuttleworth puts the

accuracy of the Priestley-Taylor method at about 0.75 mm/day.

It is clear from the discussion of errors above that potential evaporation estimation errors can

easily be on the order of 1 mm/day. This seemingly small error can yield significant differences

in surplus volumes, and surplus calculations are especially sensitive to the spatial pattern of

potential evapotranspiration estimates. The seasonal pattern of PE may also play a significant

role in surplus generation, but no definite conclusions have been made from this brief study.

Three reasons for favoring the Priestley-Taylor method over the Thornthwaite method are (1)

net radiation has a more direct physical relationship to evaporation, (2) the Priestley-Taylor

method receives a higher ranking than the Thornthwaite method in comparison to lysimeter

estimates (ASCE, 1990), and (3) the spatial pattern of Priestley-Taylor PE estimates in the Niger

basin are more sensible. The range of errors in net radiation estimates (in units of mm/day) are

of similar magnitude to the differences in Priestley-Taylor and Thornthwaite PE.


Estimated basin mean surplus volume is very sensitive to method of calculating PE. The ratio of

Thornthwaite basin mean surplus to Priestley-Taylor basin mean surplus is 1.7. The formulation

of Equation 3 should be less sensitive to PE than the formulation of Equations 16 and 17.

CIMSS Land Surface Energy/Water Budget Studies

An outstanding problem in hydrology and meteorology spanning all spatial and temporal scales

is estimating how the available net radiation at the land surface is distributed into the various

component fluxes of the land surface energy balance, most importantly evapotranspiration and

the sensible heat flux. The importance of this distribution of water and energy has been

demonstrated by many numerical studies using General Circulation Models (GCMs) to explore

the effects of varying soil moisture and resulting variations in the balance of sensible and latent

heating on the global circulation and precipitation. Other modelling studies have noted the

importance of regional variations in soil moisture and evapotranspiration on the character of

mesoscale circulations, severe weather and cloud development, precipitation and other aspects

of regional and smaller-scale atmospheric phenomena. A better understanding of the

evapotranspiration and sensible heating at the land surface would also be valuable to

agriculture, hydrology and many related fields.

Currently it is possible only at relatively small spatial scales to measure the sensible heating and

evapotranspiration from the land surface or the inter-annual variations which may result from
changes in rainfall and resulting soil moisture and vegetative response. The unavailability of

such measurements for regional and larger spatial scales has been an impediment to the

development of suitable land surface parameterizations and closure of the land surface

energy/water balance, even though certain field programs such as the First ISLSCP Field

Experiment (FIFE) and others have been designed to bridge the gaps between scales. With

inadequate verification of surface quantities at regional and larger scales, investigators have

instead mainly relied on indirect methods of verification, such as trying to generalize

measurements made over smaller scales, analyzing patterns of land use and vegetation and the

use of precipitation indices or remotely-sensed vegetation indices (such as the Normalized

Difference Vegetation Index, NDVI) as proxies for evapotranspiration and soil moisture.

Current CIMSS Work

Current land surface energy/water budget studies at the CIMSS are designed to exploit

combinations of remote sensed and in-situ data types to better understand land surface

exchanges at regional and larger scales. The long-term goal is to combine these data types in a

land surface "assimilation" scheme based on the principles of optimal estimation (the same

sorts of schemes which are currently used for assimilating atmospheric data into numerical

prediction models). This will enable the land surface energy and water balance and potentially

other land characteristics to be evaluated at regional and larger scales. Ideally, this "optimal"

system will account for the relative information content of the various data sources, the

relative spatial and temporal distributions of these data and the relative accuracy of the
"inversion" methods which are used to translate raw data into the estimates of land surface

quantities.

Recent work, conducted by CIMSS scientist George Diak and NOAA scientist Robert Rabin,

investigates the relationships between several in-situ and remote sensed signals of the land

surface energy balance and soil moisture, as well as NDVI. Some of the surface characteristic

signals analyzed are: 1) two precipitation indices, one derived from surface rainfall

measurements and the other from satellite microwave data, 2) the temporal changes of surface

"skin" (radiometric) temperatures from the GOES satellites, and 3) measurements of the

temporal changes of the height of the planetary boundary layer from radiosonde reports, a very

sensitive indicator of the surface sensible heating.

The relationship of the surface 12-hour Bowen ratio and NDVI for 5 June 1988 shows

agreement with the pattern of developing drought conditions in the area. Recall that the

Midwest and Northern Plains experienced drought conditions and abnormally warm

temperatures during the summer of 1988. Increasing "greeness" in the NDVI image indicates

increasing NDVI and vegetation cover. The contour values represent Bowen ratio (the ratio of

sensible to latent heating) values multiplied by 10. The Bowen ratio was estimated from skin

temperature data from the GOES and planetary boundary layer height measurements derived

from radiosondes. The yellow contours represent the temporal change of surface skin

temperature, which is evaluated from GOES data by subtracting the measured skin
temperature at three hours after local sunrise from the maximum skin temperature measured

during the day. The correlation between the temporal changes of skin temperature and NDVI

over the entire region was poor. However, in the eastern section of the region, which was

already experiencing drought conditions, the correlation between skin temperature and NDVI

was greatly improved.


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