Abstract. In most hydrological systems, evapotranspiration (ET) and precipitation are the largest components of the water balance, which are difficult to estimate, particularly over complex terrain. In recent decades, the advent of remotely sensed data based ET algorithms and distributed hydrological models has provided improved spatially upscaled ET estimates. However, information on the performance of these methods at various spatial scales is limited. This study compares the ET from the MODIS remotely sensed ET dataset (MOD16) with the ET estimates from a SWAT hydrological model on graduated spatial scales for the complex terrain of the Sixth Creek Catchment of the Western Mount Lofty Ranges, South Australia. ET from both models was further compared with the coarser-resolution AWRA-L model at catchment scale. The SWAT model analyses are performed on daily timescales with a 6-year calibration period (2000–2005) and 7-year validation period (2007–2013). Differences in ET estimation between the SWAT and MOD16 methods of up to 31, 19, 15, 11 and 9 % were observed at respectively 1, 4, 9, 16 and 25 km2 spatial resolutions. Based on the results of the study, a spatial scale of confidence of 4 km2 for catchment-scale evapotranspiration is suggested in complex terrain. Land cover differences, HRU parameterisation in AWRA-L and catchment-scale averaging of input climate data in the SWAT semi-distributed model were identified as the principal sources of weaker correlations at higher spatial resolution.

Abstract. The aim of this research is to develop evaporation and transpiration products for Australia based on the maximum entropy production model (MEP). We introduce a method into the MEP algorithm of estimating the required model parameters over the entire Australia through the use of pedotransfer function, soil properties and remotely sensed soil moisture data. Our algorithm calculates the evaporation and transpiration over Australia on daily timescales at the 5 km2 resolution for 2003–2013. The MEP evapotranspiration (ET) estimates are validated using observed ET data from 20 Eddy Covariance (EC) flux towers across 8 land cover types in Australia. We also compare the MEP ET at the EC flux towers with two other ET products over Australia; MOD16 and AWRA-L products. The MEP model outperforms the MOD16 and AWRA-L across the 20 EC flux sites, with average root mean square errors (RMSE), 8.21, 9.87 and 9.22 mm/8 days respectively. The average mean absolute error (MAE) for the MEP, MOD16 and AWRA-L are 6.21, 7.29 and 6.52 mm/8 days, the average correlations are 0.64, 0.57 and 0.61, respectively. The percentage Bias of the MEP ET was within 20 % of the observed ET at 12 of the 20 EC flux sites while the MOD16 and AWRA-L ET were within 20 % of the observed ET at 4 and 10 sites respectively. Our analysis shows that evaporation and transpiration contribute 38 % and 62 %, respectively, to the total ET across the study period which includes a significant part of the “millennium drought” period (2003–2009) in Australia. The data (Abiodun et al., 2019) is available at https://doi.org/10.25901/5ce795d313db8.

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The experiment was conducted to evaluate the carcass, caeca microbial parameters of broilers fed different levels of mixed lemon grass and garlic extract (CLGE). Five hundred broiler chickens (Ross 308) were allotted to five treatments with five replicate consisting of 20 birds each in a completely randomized design (CRD). The first group T1 was given 0.025g/litre Neomycin in water while T2, T3, T4 and T5 were given CLGE at levels 3.0ml/litre, 6.0ml/litre, 9.0ml/litre and 12.0 ml/ litre of water respectively. The experiment lasted for four weeks each for the starter and finisher respectively. Results on dressing percentages revealed that birds given 12.0 ml/l CLGE was highest (76.87%) followed by those in T4 (76.54 %), T3 (75.61 %), T2 (75.00%) and T1 (70.01%). Significant influences (P<0.05) were also observed in the relative organ weight (liver, kidney, spleen, heart, pancreas, gizzard and proventriculus). There were also significant differences (P<0.05) in the caeca microbial population of E.coli and lactobacillus count as well as the antibody titer against Newcastle and gumboro disease. Birds in T5 had the lowest E.coli count (9.00 cfu/g) when compared to T1 (22.19 cfu/g) with the highest proportion of the bacteria. It was concluded that CLGE could be given to broilers at 12.0ml/liter without any negative effect on the health and can be used to effectively replace antibiotics.