CONTROLLING FACTORS OF POTENTIAL EVAPOTRANSPIRATION ABOVE GRASSLAND IN HUMID AND ARID AREA
Abstract: Potential
evapotranspiration (PET) is an importance process in water balance studies
controlled by a number of meteorological factors such as temperature, wind
speed, atmospheric pressure, solar radiation, vapor pressure gradient, relative
humidity and biological factors such as vegetation type, canopy height and
plant density that varied in time-scale and in spatial scale. Of all those
variables, determining the most controlling factors of evapotranspiration in
humid and arid area is of interest of this paper. Two sites representing humid
and arid area i.e. Fermi Prairie site in Illinois and Audubon Research Ranch in
Arizona respectively were investigated in this study. The flux data employed in this study was
acquired from Ameriflux Netwotk. Penmann-Monteith formula is employed in to
estimate evapotranspiration rate in both sites. The result shows that the PET
is in dependence on the considered meteorological factor such as shortwave
radiation, vapor pressure, air temperature, wind speed, net radiation and vapor
pressure deficit. It is also can be inferred from the analysis that PET is also
strongly controlled by vegetation factors represented as stomatal resistance.
Author: Yanto
Journal Code: jptsipilgg120049
