Maximum surface temperature model to evaluate evaporation from a saline soil in arid area

In order to estimate soil evaporation from saline soil in arid area, a maximum surface temperature (MST) model was applied to Hetao Irrigation District (HID). The model was developed based on energy balance and sinusoidal function of surface soil temperature. Evaporation and surface temperature of drying soil columns and surface temperature of natural field were observed in each 1-h interval in daytime (from September 10 to 19, 2010) in a saline land in HID. The results indicated that the estimated evaporation shows a similar trend and in good agreement with the observed values. To quantitatively evaluate the performance of the model, some statistic parameters were calculated as well. These statistics could also indicate that the observed values perform similar trend to the estimated values. It is concluded that the MST model could be applied to estimate soil evaporation from saline land. The proposed method is hopeful to estimate soil evaporation over large scale area using only surface temperature available from the satellite image while assigning an effective exchange coefficient (c _h ).