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ARS Home » Pacific West Area » Maricopa, Arizona » U.S. Arid Land Agricultural Research Center » Water Management and Conservation Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #391950
Research Project: Advancing Water Management and Conservation in Irrigated Arid Lands

Location: Water Management and Conservation Research

Title: pyfao56: FAO-56 evapotranspiration in Python

Author
item Thorp, Kelly

Submitted to: SoftwareX
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 9/12/2022
Publication Date: 9/30/2022
Citation: Thorp, K.R. 2022. pyfao56: FAO-56 evapotranspiration in Python. SoftwareX. 19. Article 101208. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.softx.2022.101208.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.softx.2022.101208

Interpretive Summary: Standardized methods for estimation of evapotranspiration (ET; water evaporated from land surfaces and transpired from plants) have been available for several decades. The goal of this effort was to codify the ET methods in the modern Python programming language and release the software to open-source repositories. The software will be useful to Python programmers, scientists, and ET practitioners with aim to develop modern hardware and software technologies that implement the standardized ET methods.

Technical Abstract: The pyfao56 software package is a Python-based implementation of 1) the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) Standardized Reference Evapotranspiration Equation and 2) the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO) Irrigation and Drainage Paper No. 56 (FAO-56) dual crop coefficient methodology. The software was initially developed to support crop water use estimation and irrigation scheduling for field research at the Maricopa Agricultural Center in Arizona. Recent efforts to generalize and modularize the software design has increased its applicability and relevance for broader scientific studies on crop evapotranspiration and irrigation management worldwide.