Service-oriented approach for modeling and estimating reference evapotranspiration

Software used for estimating reference evapotranspiration (ET0) has been developing in various directions. The main goal of this paper is to present an approach based on Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) paradigm for modeling and estimating ET0. The FAO-56 Penman-Monteith (FAO-56 PM) and Hargreaves equation are used for estimating monthly ET0. The weather data for this study were obtained from CIMIS for Davis weather station. The FAO-56 PM and Hargreaves ET0 values estimated using Er Web service were compared to corresponding CIMIS PM ET0 estimates. The proposed model based on Web services implemented to the FAO-56 PM and Hargreaves equations has good performances and can be used in estimating ET0 and has ability to complete missing weather data. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.