Comparison of Evapotranspiration Methods in Novi Sad from 1980 to 2015

<p>Evapotranspiration (ET) is a key process in hydrology, agriculture, and managing water<br />resources. It affects things like irrigation planning and climate research. In this study, we used<br />a temperature-based variation of the Penman-Monteit (PMtl) equation and the Hargreaves<br />(HARG) equation to compare with the standard Penman-Monteith (PM) method for<br />estimating ET. The data used for the calculation of evapotranspiration was collected from the<br />meteorological station in Novi Sad during the period from 1980 to 2015. ET results were<br />statisticly analyzed using Pearson’s correlation coefficient (r), coefficient of determination<br />(R²), Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency (NSE), index of agreement (d), root mean square error<br />(RMSE), mean absolute error (MAE), relative squared residual (RSR), relative error (RE),<br />and the percent bias (PBIAS) to assess the reliability and validity of the applied methods.<br />Findings in this study showed r=0.99 for PMtl and HARG, respectively. Using PMtl RMSE =<br />0.24 was obtained and RMSE=0.41 using HARG. Moreover findings showed MAE=0.17 for<br />PMtl and MAE=0.32 for HARG. A high r value and low RMSE and MAE values indicate<br />that PMtl is more reliable than HARG method. The temperature-based Penman-Monteith<br />(PMtl) method has proven to be a more accurate and reliable alternative to the reference<br />method in data-limited conditions, while the Hargreaves method can be used with caution due<br />to its slightly lower accuracy.</p>