Experimental studies indicate that evaporative fraction (EF), the ratio between the latent heat flux and the available energy at the land surface, is a normalized diagnostic that is nearly constant during daytime under fair weather conditions (so-called daytime self preservation). This study examines this observation and investigates contributions to the variability of EF due to environmental factors (air temperature, solar incoming radiation, wind velocity, soil water content or leaf area index). It is shown here that the phase difference between soil heat flux and net radiation needs to be characterized fully in application models that invoke EF daytime self-preservation. Further conditions under which the diurnally constant EF assumption can hold are also discussed
Please cite this article in press as: Er-Raki, S. et al., Combining FAO-56 model and ground-based remote sensing to estimate water consumptions of wheat crops in a semi-arid region, Agric. Water Manage. (2006),
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.