What is an Evapotranspiration?
You’ve probably experienced the direct effects of evapotranspiration while walking past a stand of willow trees on a hot, sunny summer day. The tiny droplets of transpired water from the leaves create a cool, moist – and very welcome – micro-climate. Sometimes the effect is so pronounced it actually feels like a fine mist on your skin.
Evapotranspiration (ET) as a process, describes the transport of water into the atmosphere from different surfaces, including soil (soil evaporation), and vegetation (transpiration). These two are often the most important contributors to evapotranspiration. Other contributors to evapotranspiration may include evaporation from wet canopy surface (wet-canopy evaporation), and evaporation from vegetation-covered water surface in wetlands. The evaporation component of ET is comprised of the return of water back to the atmosphere through direct evaporative loss from the soil surface, standing water (depression storage), and water on surfaces (intercepted water) such as leaves and/or roofs. Transpired water is that which is used by vegetation and subsequently lost to the atmosphere as vapor.
Remote sensing is the small or large-scale acquisition of information of an object or phenomenon, by the use of either a recording or real-time sensing device(s) that are wireless, or not in physical or intimate contact with the object (such as by way of aircraft, spacecraft, satellite, buoy, or ship). For our purposes, remote sensing is most often accomplished through the use of satellites or light aircraft equipped with special sensing/viewing equipment.
7Q10 can prepare detailed evapotranspiration (ET) studies to assist in the determination of the perennial (safe) yield and also create separate groundwater flow models. This can be used to safely determine how much ground water can be pumped out of basins, while at the same time protecting existing rights and public interests. Using remote sensing technology 7Q10 completes these studies faster and more efficiently.