Comparison of predictions of daily evapotranspiration based on climate variables using different data mining and empirical methods in various climates of Iran

Sharafi, S; Ghaleni, MM; Scholz, M

Abstract

To accurately manage water resources, a precise prediction of reference evapotranspiration (ETref) is necessary. The best empirical equations to determine ETref are usually the temperature-based Baier and Robertson (BARO), the radiation-based Jensen and Haise (JEHA), and the mass transfer-based Penman (PENM) ones. Two machine learning (ML) models were used: least squares support vector regression (LSSVR) and ANFIS optimized using the particle swarm optimization algorithm (ANFPSO). These models were applied to the daily ETref at 100 synoptic stations for different climates of Iran. Performance of studied models was evaluated by the correlation coefficient (R), coefficient of determination (R2), mean absolute error (MAE), root mean square error (RMSE), scatter index (SI) and the Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency (NSE). The combination-based ML models (LSSVR4 and ANFPSO4) had the lowest error (RMSE = 0.34–2.85 mm d−1) and the best correlation (R = 0.66–0.99). The temperature-based empirical relationships had more precision than the radiation- and mass transfer-based empirical equations.

Citation

Sharafi, S., Ghaleni, M., & Scholz, M. (2023). Comparison of predictions of daily evapotranspiration based on climate variables using different data mining and empirical methods in various climates of Iran. Heliyon, 9(2), e13245. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e13245

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jan 23, 2023
• Online Publication Date: Jan 28, 2023
• Publication Date: Jan 28, 2023
• Deposit Date: Feb 21, 2023
• Publicly Available Date: Feb 21, 2023
• Journal: Heliyon
• Print ISSN: 2405-8440
• Publisher: Elsevier
• Volume: 9
• Issue: 2
• Pages: e13245
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e13245
• Publisher URL: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e13245