Evapotranspiration

Objectives: To define the term evapotranspiration To know how to measure evapotranspiration

Transpiration Transpiration is the process by which water leaves the body of a living plant and reaches the atmosphere as water vapour. The water is taken up by the plant-root system and escapes through the leaves. The important factors affecting transpiration are: - atmospheric vapour pressure - temperature - wind - light intensity and - characteristics of the plant such as the root and leaf systems. Evapotranspiration While transpiration takes place, the land area in which plants stand also lose moisture by the evaporation of water from soil and water bodies. In hydrology and irrigation practice, it is found that evaporation and transpiration processes can be considered advantageously under one head as evapotranspiration. The term consumptive use is also used to denote this loss by evapotranspiration. For a given set of atmospheric conditions, evapotranspiration obviously depends on the availability of water. If sufficient moisture is always available to completely meet the needs of vegetation fully covering the area, the resulting evapotranspiration is called potential evapotranspiration !"T#. The real evapotranspiration occurring in a specific situation is called actual evapotranspiration $"T#. Measurement of evapotranspiration The measurement of evapotranspiration for a given vegetation type can be carried out in two ways: either by using lysimeters or by the use of field plots.