Comparison of Actual Evapotranspiration assessment by satellite-based model SEBS and hydrological model BBH in northern Tunisia

Abstract

Abstract. Estimating actual evapotranspiration (AET) in agricultural semi-arid regions is important for crop yield and drought assessment. The Surface Energy Balance System (SEBS) model, a physically based energy balance model using satellite information is used to estimate AET at the 10 d scale, with a 3 km resolution. The bucket bottom hole (BBH) model, a conceptual daily water balance model is calibrated using the equifinality approach and run for simulating daily AET. Five watersheds located in northern Tunisia with areas varying between 56 and 448 km2 were calibrated using daily rainfall and potential evapotranspiration data as entry and river discharge as output data. Sets of model parameters fulfilling both absolute relative errors of simulated discharge less than 20 % and Nash–Sutcliffe coefficients greater than 0.75 were selected. Three years were selected for the comparison (2010, 2017, and 2018). For every year, six subperiods of 10 d are considered belonging to January, March, April, May, July, and September. Boxplots of AET-BBH estimations are plotted to achieve a comparison with AET-SEBS estimates. It is found that AET comparisons are well favorable for January, March, and April while less satisfactory for May and September. They do not match for July. AET-SEBS are much higher in comparison with AET-BBH estimates with an RMSE and MAE equal respectively to 17 and 19 mm 10 d−1. These results may help stakeholders to assess AET coming from different data sources and models.