Reliability of MODIS Evapotranspiration Products for Heterogeneous Dry Forest: A Study Case of Caatinga

Abstract

Evapotranspiration (ET) is normally considered as the sum of all water that evaporates from the soil and transpires from plants. However, accurately estimating ET from complex landscapes can be difficult because of its high spatial heterogeneity and diversity of driver factors, which make extrapolation of data from a point to a larger area quite inaccurate. In this paper, we hypothesize that MODIS products can be of use to estimate ET in areas of Caatinga vegetation, the hydrology of which has not been adequately studied. The experiment was conducted in a preserved level area of Caatinga in which meteorological and water flux measures were taken throughout 2012 by eddy covariance. Evapotranspiration estimates from eddy covariance were compared with remotely sensed evapotranspiration estimates from MOD16A2 and SAFER products. Correlations were performed at monthly, 8-day, and daily scales; and produced r2 values of monthly scale = 0.92, 8-day scale = 0.88, and daily scale = 0.85 for the SAFER algorithm. Monthly MOD16A2 data produced a value of r2=0.82, and they may be useful because they are free, downloadable, and easy to use by researchers and governments.