Assessing reference evapotranspiration by the Hargreaves method in southern Spain

The Hargreaves method enables reference crop evapotranspiration (ET0) estimation in areas where meteorological information is scarce, as, for example, southern Spain. However, this method is known to produce considerable bias in this region, especially during the dry, hot summer months. An evaluation of the method is made by comparing daily estimates with those made by the more commonly recommended Penman-Monteith method at 16 meteorological stations. Computed ET0 values at the coastal stations are, on average, 0.69 mm d(-1) smaller than the Penman-Monteith estimates whereas at inland stations a small average overestimation of 0.13 mm d(-1) is shown. The adjusted Hargreaves coefficient (AHC), obtained through regression analysis, increases at the coastal stations, on average, to 0.0029, and decreases at the inland stations to 0.0022. Adjustment with the Samani method does generally not produce more accurate estimates in this region. Finally a linear relationship between the AHC and the rate of the average temperature to the average daily temperature range is proposed for the regional adjustment of the Hargreaves coefficient.