Evaluation and calibration of simple methods for daily reference evapotranspiration estimation in humid East China

The current study aims to improve the performance of simple methods for the estimation of daily reference evapotranspiration (ET₀) in humid East China, namely Priestley–Taylor 1972 (P-T 1972), Hargreaves–Samani 1985 (H-S 1985) and Turc 1961 (TU 1961). These methods were evaluated and calibrated based on well-watered grass lysimeter experiments. The FAO-56 Penman–Monteith equation (FAO-56 PM) is the best method, and the radiation-based methods (TU 1961 and P-T 1972) perform much better than the temperature-based method (H-S 1985). In the simple methods, the coefficients are calibrated to: 1.34 for P-T 1972; 0.0186, 23.47 and 17.06 for TU 1961; and 0.0027 and 0.449 for H-S 1985. The locally calibrated TU 1961 and P-T 1972 perform much better than the original, with either the observed ET_0r or the ET_0c obtained by FAO-56 PM as standard. However, local calibration does not significantly improve the performance of the H-S 1985 method. In humid East China, FAO-56 PM is the best method for daily ET₀ calculation. TU 1961, especially if locally calibrated, is the optimal choice as a simple substitute for FAO-56 PM when solar radiation is available. Otherwise, serious local calibration is strongly recommended before applying H-S 1985 for daily ET₀ estimation.