Estimating Global Distribution of Evapotranspiration and Water Balance Using Complementary Methods

The authors propose a modified complementary method to estimate regional evapotranspiration (ET) under different climatic and physical conditions using only meteorological data. The purpose of this study is to investigate the applicability of the modified complementary method for estimating global ET distribution and corresponding water balance. Gridded data from the Climate Research Unit, University of East Anglia, with 30 min spatial resolution and monthly time steps are used. Using the Thornthwaite water budget, monthly maps of global water surplus (precipitation minus ET) are produced. The results show good agreement with many previous studies. The average annual precipitation, ET, and water surplus are 690, 434, and 256 mm, respectively. The results show that the modified model can predict regional ET using meteorological data and can be used to assess global water resources. Consequently, the proposed method has strong potential for projecting water resource balance under future climate change.