AN EVAPOTRANSPIRATION-INTERCEPTION MODEL FOR URBAN AREAS

A model to calculate evapotranspiration from urban areas over a wide range of meteorological conditions is presented. An evapotranspiration-interception approach is used because it is necessary to cope with the changing water availability on the surface, during and following rainfall or irrigation. The model is applicable to areas ranging from the size of city blocks to land use zones and time periods of one hour and longer. The modeled evaporation is compared with that from micrometerological measurements conducted from January to June 1987 in a suburb of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The results show that this approach to modeling urban evapotranspiration provides realistic hourly and daily estimates of the areally averaged latent heat flux and surface water state.