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ARS Home » Plains Area » Bushland, Texas » Conservation and Production Research Laboratory » Soil and Water Management Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #314349
Title: Advances in the two-source energy balance model: Partioning of evaporation and transpiration for row crops for cotton

Author
item Colaizzi, Paul
item AGAM, NURIT - Ben Gurion University Of Negev
item Tolk, Judy
item Evett, Steven - Steve
item HOWELL, TERRY - Retired ARS Employee
item O`Shaughnessy, Susan
item Gowda, Prasanna

Submitted to: Transactions of the ASABE
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 7/30/2015
Publication Date: 2/23/2016
Publication URL: http://handle.nal.usda.gov/10113/61945
Citation: Colaizzi, P.D., Agam, N., Tolk, J.A., Evett, S.R., Howell, T.A., Oshaughnessy, S.A., Gowda, P. 2016. Advances in the two-source energy balance model: Partioning of evaporation and transpiration for row crops for cotton. Transactions of the ASABE. 59(1): 181-197.

Interpretive Summary: Irrigation management requires knowledge of one way to estimate evaporation and transpiration. Evaporation does not contribute directly to crop yield, and is generally considered a loss. Crop water use models are evaporation and transpiration. Scientists from ARS Bushland, TX and Ben Gurion University of Negey, reviewed and tested recent advances made to a crop water use model. The advances improved the accuracies of evaporation and transpiration that were calculated by the model. This will help farmers reduce evaporation losses from crops, both dryland and irrigated. Also, it will increase the chances that crops will survive drought under both irrigated and dryland production systems.

Technical Abstract: Accurate partitioning of the evaporation (E) and transpiration (T) components of evapotranspiration (ET) in remote sensing models is important for evaluating strategies aimed at increasing crop water productivity. The two-source energy balance (TSEB) model solves the energy balance of the soil-plant canopy-atmosphere continuum using surface brightness temperature. By solving the energy balance of the soil and canopy separately, the TSEB model can calculate E and T, which cannot be done with single-source models. However, few studies have tested the TSEB model where E or T measurements were available, which until recently has impeded its advance. This paper reviews recent TSEB model advances designed for row crops, where models were tested using measurements of E, T, and ET by microlysimeters, sap flow gauges, and weighing lysimeters, respectively, at Bushland, Texas, USA. Ongoing research includes testing the TSEB with these recent advances using different remote sensing platforms, from ground-based to satellite scales.