History and Evaluation of Hargreaves Evapotranspiration Equation

Abstract

A brief history of development of the 1985 Hargreaves equation and its comparison to evapotranspiration (ET) predicted by the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO) Penman-Monteith method are described to provide background and information helpful in selecting an appropriate reference ET equation under various data situations. Early efforts in irrigation water requirement computations in California and other arid and semiarid regions required the development of simplified ET equations for use with limited weather data. Several initial efforts were directed towards improving the usefulness of pan evaporation for estimating irrigation water requirements. Similarity with climates of other countries allowed developments in California to be extended overseas. Criticism of empirical methods by H. L. Penman and others encouraged the search for a robust and practical method that was based on readily available climatic data for computing potential evapotranspiration or reference crop evapotranspiration