• Journal of Korea Water Resources Association
• /
• v.53 no.9
• /
• pp.701-715
• /
• 2020

This study compared several reference evapotranspiration estimated using eight methods such as FAO-56 Penman-Monteith (FAO PM), Hamon, Hansen, Hargreaves-Samani, Jensen-Haise, Makkink, Priestley-Taylor, and Thornthwaite. In addition, by analyzing the monthly deviations of the results by the FAO PM and the remaining seven methods, monthly optimized correction coefficients were derived and the improvement effect was evaluated. These methods were applied to 73 automated synoptic observation system (ASOS) stations of the Korea Meteorological Administration, where the climatological data are available at least 20 years. As a result of evaluating the reference evapotranspiration by applying the default coefficients of each method, a large fluctuation happened depending on the method, and the Hansen method was relatively similar to FAO PM. However, the Hamon and Jensen-Haise methods showed more large values than other methods in summer, and the deviation from FAO PM method was also large significantly. When comparing based on the region, the comparison with FAO PM method provided that the reference evapotranspiration estimated by other methods was overestimated in most regions except for eastern coastal areas. Based on the deviation from the FAO PM method, the monthly correction coefficients were derived for each station. The monthly deviation average that ranged from -46 mm to +88 mm before correction was improved to -11 mm to +1 mm after correction, and the annual average deviation was also significantly reduced by correction from -393 mm to +354 mm (before correction) to -33 mm to +9 mm (after correction). In particular, Hamon, Hargreaves-Samani, and Thornthwaite methods using only temperature data also produced results that were not significantly different from FAO PM after correction. It can be also useful for forecasting long-term reference evapotranspiration using temperature data in climate change scenarios or predicting evapotranspiration using monthly or seasonal temperature forecasted values.