Analysis of Evapotranspiration and Modified Fournier Index in the municipality of Ahuacatlan, Nayarit, Mexico.

Abstract

There is a global concern to know the trends on climate variables to prevent natural disasters and adapt measures in diverse productive activities. The objective of this work was to analyze the effect that potential evapotranspiration (ETo) and modified Fournier index (MFi) have on soil erosion, in the municipality of Ahuacatlan Nayarit during the period 1980-2009. Climatological records of precipitation and maximum and minimum temperatures were taken from the official website of the National Meteorological Service; a data cleaning and data quality control was performed using RClimdex software; data processing and variable calculation was carried by the Moclic software. Regarding the ETo variable, no significant changes were observed annually but a considered increasing trend in the months of july and august. A significant trend towards an increase was observed annually for the MFi. It was found that july, august, june and september were the months that most affect such trend. An increase in the ETo and MFi variables was found during july, which can cause higher damage on the soil.

Keywords

• Potential evapotranspiration
• modified Fournier index
• water erosion