COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF TWO REMOTE SENSING MODELS ESTIMATING EVAPOTRANSPIRATION OF AS'SUWAIQ REGION

Oman is a hot, arid and highly water-stressed country. The less amount of rainfall, not exceeding 100 mm per annum, leads to the dire need of optimum water management practices. Evapotranspiration estimates plays an important role in water management practices. Traditional methods to estimate actual evapotranspiration (ETa) are dependent on climatological data providing only point-based outcomes, In this study, two remote sensing surface energy-based models namely Surface Energy Balance Algorithm for Land (SEBAL) and Mapping EvapoTranspiration at high Resolution with Internalized Calibration (METRIC) were applied to estimate ETa in the city of As'Suwaiq, Oman over a period of two years. Results shown that SEBAL model under estimating ETa especially, in the peak summer. Whereas strong correlation of METRIC model with Penman Monteith model with R-2 value of 0.71 as compared to R-2 value of 0.13 with SEBAL. The study concluded that METRIC model performed better than SEBAL in estimating ETa for As'Suwaiq region as it provided results with high spatial and temporal resolution.