This research focused on estimating evapotranspiration (i.e., the amount of water vaporizing into the atmosphere through processes of surface evaporation and plant transpiration) under both theoretical and actual conditions. There were two study areas involved: one, on a large scale where 704 agriculturally-representative, electronic weather stations were used to evaluate the drivers and calculated reference evapotranspiration of a NASA gridded weather forcing model in the 17 western states in the contiguous U.S.; and two, transpiration of invasive saltcedar (Tamarix sp.) in the floodplain of the lower Colorado River, California, with Bowen ratio, eddy covariance, and groundwater fluxes. In this study, a fire destroyed the saltcedar forest, which allowed comparison of evapotranspiration before and after\ this event
Comparison of the input weather parameters showed some variance between the electronic weather stations and the gridded model, but calculated reference evapotranspiration performed well by relying on the better input and more highly weighed variables of air temperature and downward shortwave radiation. Only in the southern portions of California, Arizona, and New Mexico were the evapotranspiration estimates using the gridded dataset not well correlated with the electronic weather stations and not recommended for prediction. Saltcedar evapotranspiration was found to match more recent and conservative estimates for the phreatophyte than what was historically portrayed in the literature. Horizontal advection from the surrounding desert was also observed to affect the riparian energy balance. Annual average total evapotranspiration before a fire varied from 0.60-1.44 meters/year to 0.25-1.00 meters/year post fire.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UTAHS/oai:digitalcommons.usu.edu:etd-5717 |
| Date | 01 May 2016 |
| Creators | Lewis, Clayton S. |
| Publisher | DigitalCommons@USU |
| Source Sets | Utah State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | All Graduate Theses and Dissertations |
| Rights | Copyright for this work is held by the author. Transmission or reproduction of materials protected by copyright beyond that allowed by fair use requires the written permission of the copyright owners. Works not in the public domain cannot be commercially exploited without permission of the copyright owner. Responsibility for any use rests exclusively with the user. For more information contact Andrew Wesolek (andrew.wesolek@usu.edu). |
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