ESTIMATIVA DA EVAPOTRANSPIRAÇÃO DE REFERÊNCIA DIÁRIA PARA MOSSORÓ (RN, BRASIL)

Abstract

For applications in water management, estimation of evapotranspiration is a critical term in the water balance, to establish a sustainable development of activities that requires such action. So it is necessary to more accurately estimate the reference evapotranspiration (ETo). The objective of this study was to evaluate the performance of daily ETo values obtained for 12 empirical methods by comparing them with the Penman- Monteith FAO. The meteorological data used for the empirical models were measured in the National Institute of Meteorology automatic meteorological station installed at the experimental station in Rafael Fernandes, Federal Rural University of Semi-Arid, Mossoró, RN. Even with some methods presenting divergences from the standard method in the months of the highest water demand with an absolute error of approximately 0.99 to 1.67, it could infer that the most suitable methods based on the performance index greater than 0.76 were: Benevides and Lopez (1970), Linacre (1983), Bruin (1979), Jensen and Hayse (1963) and Priestley and Taylor (1972), in that order, thus it may represent satisfactorily the ETo. The methods that require fewer climatic elements such as Benevides and Lopez (c = 0.85) and Linacre (c = 0.79) performed better than more complex to estimate ETo in daily periods at any time of year.