IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jagris/v14y2024i4p510-d1361874.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Using Artificial Intelligence Algorithms to Estimate and Short-Term Forecast the Daily Reference Evapotranspiration with Limited Meteorological Variables

Author

Listed:
  • Shih-Lun Fang

    (Department of Agronomy, National Chung Hsing University, Taichung 40227, Taiwan
    These authors contributed equally to this work.)

  • Yi-Shan Lin

    (Department of Agronomy, National Chung Hsing University, Taichung 40227, Taiwan
    These authors contributed equally to this work.)

  • Sheng-Chih Chang

    (Taiwan Seed Improvement and Propagation Station, Taichung 426017, Taiwan)

  • Yi-Lung Chang

    (Taiwan Seed Improvement and Propagation Station, Taichung 426017, Taiwan)

  • Bing-Yun Tsai

    (Taiwan Seed Improvement and Propagation Station, Taichung 426017, Taiwan)

  • Bo-Jein Kuo

    (Department of Agronomy, National Chung Hsing University, Taichung 40227, Taiwan
    Smart Sustainable New Agriculture Research Center (SMARTer), Taichung 40227, Taiwan)

Abstract

The reference evapotranspiration (ET 0 ) information is crucial for irrigation planning and water resource management. While the Penman-Monteith (PM) equation is widely recognized for ET 0 calculation, its reliance on numerous meteorological parameters constrains its practical application. This study used 28 years of meteorological data from 18 stations in four geographic regions of Taiwan to evaluate the effectiveness of an artificial intelligence (AI) model for estimating PM-calculated ET 0 using limited meteorological variables as input and compared it with traditional methods. The AI models were also employed for short-term ET 0 forecasting with limited meteorological variables. The findings suggested that AI models performed better than their counterpart methods for ET 0 estimation. The artificial neural network using temperature, solar radiation, and relative humidity as input variables performed best, with the correlation coefficient ( r ) ranging from 0.992 to 0.998, mean absolute error (MAE) ranging from 0.07 to 0.16 mm/day, and root mean square error (RMSE) ranging from 0.12 to 0.25 mm/day. For short-term ET 0 forecasting, the long short-term memory model using temperature, solar radiation, and relative humidity as input variables was the best structure to forecast four-day-ahead ET 0 , with the r ranging from 0.608 to 0.756, MAE ranging from 1.05 to 1.28 mm/day, and RMSE ranging from 1.35 to 1.62 mm/day. The percentage error of this structure was within ± 5% for most meteorological stations over the one-year test period, underscoring the potential of the proposed models to deliver daily ET 0 forecasts with acceptable accuracy. Finally, the proposed estimating and forecasting models were developed in regional and variable-limited scenarios, making them highly advantageous for practical applications.

Suggested Citation

  • Shih-Lun Fang & Yi-Shan Lin & Sheng-Chih Chang & Yi-Lung Chang & Bing-Yun Tsai & Bo-Jein Kuo, 2024. "Using Artificial Intelligence Algorithms to Estimate and Short-Term Forecast the Daily Reference Evapotranspiration with Limited Meteorological Variables," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 14(4), pages 1-20, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jagris:v:14:y:2024:i:4:p:510-:d:1361874
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/14/4/510/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/14/4/510/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Landeras, Gorka & Ortiz-Barredo, Amaia & López, Jose Javier, 2008. "Comparison of artificial neural network models and empirical and semi-empirical equations for daily reference evapotranspiration estimation in the Basque Country (Northern Spain)," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 95(5), pages 553-565, May.
    2. Sentelhas, Paulo C. & Gillespie, Terry J. & Santos, Eduardo A., 2010. "Evaluation of FAO Penman-Monteith and alternative methods for estimating reference evapotranspiration with missing data in Southern Ontario, Canada," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 97(5), pages 635-644, May.
    3. Yin, Juan & Deng, Zhen & Ines, Amor V.M. & Wu, Junbin & Rasu, Eeswaran, 2020. "Forecast of short-term daily reference evapotranspiration under limited meteorological variables using a hybrid bi-directional long short-term memory model (Bi-LSTM)," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 242(C).
    4. Bellido-Jiménez, Juan A. & Estévez, Javier & García-Marín, Amanda P., 2022. "A regional machine learning method to outperform temperature-based reference evapotranspiration estimations in Southern Spain," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 274(C).
    5. Bellido-Jiménez, Juan Antonio & Estévez, Javier & García-Marín, Amanda Penélope, 2021. "New machine learning approaches to improve reference evapotranspiration estimates using intra-daily temperature-based variables in a semi-arid region of Spain," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 245(C).
    6. Allen, Richard G. & Pereira, Luis S. & Howell, Terry A. & Jensen, Marvin E., 2011. "Evapotranspiration information reporting: I. Factors governing measurement accuracy," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 98(6), pages 899-920, April.
    7. Xiaohu Wen & Jianhua Si & Zhibin He & Jun Wu & Hongbo Shao & Haijiao Yu, 2015. "Support-Vector-Machine-Based Models for Modeling Daily Reference Evapotranspiration With Limited Climatic Data in Extreme Arid Regions," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 29(9), pages 3195-3209, July.
    8. Yuan-Chih Su & Bo-Jein Kuo, 2023. "Risk Assessment of Rice Damage Due to Heavy Rain in Taiwan," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 13(3), pages 1-19, March.
    9. Yang, Yang & Cui, Yuanlai & Bai, Kaihua & Luo, Tongyuan & Dai, Junfeng & Wang, Weiguang & Luo, Yufeng, 2019. "Short-term forecasting of daily reference evapotranspiration using the reduced-set Penman-Monteith model and public weather forecasts," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 211(C), pages 70-80.
    10. Mojtaba Shadmani & Safar Marofi & Majid Roknian, 2012. "Trend Analysis in Reference Evapotranspiration Using Mann-Kendall and Spearman’s Rho Tests in Arid Regions of Iran," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 26(1), pages 211-224, January.
    11. Masoud Karbasi, 2018. "Forecasting of Multi-Step Ahead Reference Evapotranspiration Using Wavelet- Gaussian Process Regression Model," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 32(3), pages 1035-1052, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Paredes, P. & Pereira, L.S. & Almorox, J. & Darouich, H., 2020. "Reference grass evapotranspiration with reduced data sets: Parameterization of the FAO Penman-Monteith temperature approach and the Hargeaves-Samani equation using local climatic variables," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 240(C).
    2. Traore, Seydou & Luo, Yufeng & Fipps, Guy, 2016. "Deployment of artificial neural network for short-term forecasting of evapotranspiration using public weather forecast restricted messages," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 163(C), pages 363-379.
    3. Yin, Juan & Deng, Zhen & Ines, Amor V.M. & Wu, Junbin & Rasu, Eeswaran, 2020. "Forecast of short-term daily reference evapotranspiration under limited meteorological variables using a hybrid bi-directional long short-term memory model (Bi-LSTM)," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 242(C).
    4. Qiu, Rangjian & Li, Longan & Liu, Chunwei & Wang, Zhenchang & Zhang, Baozhong & Liu, Zhandong, 2022. "Evapotranspiration estimation using a modified crop coefficient model in a rotated rice-winter wheat system," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 264(C).
    5. Malik, Anurag & Jamei, Mehdi & Ali, Mumtaz & Prasad, Ramendra & Karbasi, Masoud & Yaseen, Zaher Mundher, 2022. "Multi-step daily forecasting of reference evapotranspiration for different climates of India: A modern multivariate complementary technique reinforced with ridge regression feature selection," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 272(C).
    6. Yang, Yang & Luo, Yufeng & Wu, Conglin & Zheng, Hezhen & Zhang, Lei & Cui, Yuanlai & Sun, Ningning & Wang, Li, 2019. "Evaluation of six equations for daily reference evapotranspiration estimating using public weather forecast message for different climate regions across China," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 222(C), pages 386-399.
    7. Valle Júnior, Luiz C.G. & Ventura, Thiago M. & Gomes, Raphael S.R. & de S. Nogueira, José & de A. Lobo, Francisco & Vourlitis, George L. & Rodrigues, Thiago R., 2020. "Comparative assessment of modelled and empirical reference evapotranspiration methods for a brazilian savanna," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 232(C).
    8. Roy, Dilip Kumar & Lal, Alvin & Sarker, Khokan Kumer & Saha, Kowshik Kumar & Datta, Bithin, 2021. "Optimization algorithms as training approaches for prediction of reference evapotranspiration using adaptive neuro fuzzy inference system," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 255(C).
    9. Bellido-Jiménez, Juan Antonio & Estévez, Javier & García-Marín, Amanda Penélope, 2021. "New machine learning approaches to improve reference evapotranspiration estimates using intra-daily temperature-based variables in a semi-arid region of Spain," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 245(C).
    10. Cruz-Blanco, M. & Lorite, I.J. & Santos, C., 2014. "An innovative remote sensing based reference evapotranspiration method to support irrigation water management under semi-arid conditions," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 131(C), pages 135-145.
    11. Fan, Junliang & Ma, Xin & Wu, Lifeng & Zhang, Fucang & Yu, Xiang & Zeng, Wenzhi, 2019. "Light Gradient Boosting Machine: An efficient soft computing model for estimating daily reference evapotranspiration with local and external meteorological data," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 225(C).
    12. Paredes, Paula & Martins, Diogo S. & Pereira, Luis Santos & Cadima, Jorge & Pires, Carlos, 2018. "Accuracy of daily estimation of grass reference evapotranspiration using ERA-Interim reanalysis products with assessment of alternative bias correction schemes," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 210(C), pages 340-353.
    13. Valipour, Mohammad & Khoshkam, Helaleh & Bateni, Sayed M. & Jun, Changhyun & Band, Shahab S., 2023. "Hybrid machine learning and deep learning models for multi-step-ahead daily reference evapotranspiration forecasting in different climate regions across the contiguous United States," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 283(C).
    14. Behrooz Keshtegar & Ozgur Kisi & Hamed Ghohani Arab & Mohammad Zounemat-Kermani, 2018. "Subset Modeling Basis ANFIS for Prediction of the Reference Evapotranspiration," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 32(3), pages 1101-1116, February.
    15. Vásquez, Cristina & Célleri, Rolando & Córdova, Mario & Carrillo-Rojas, Galo, 2022. "Improving reference evapotranspiration (ETo) calculation under limited data conditions in the high Tropical Andes," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 262(C).
    16. Feng, Yu & Gong, Daozhi & Mei, Xurong & Hao, Weiping & Tang, Dahua & Cui, Ningbo, 2017. "Energy balance and partitioning in partial plastic mulched and non-mulched maize fields on the Loess Plateau of China," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 191(C), pages 193-206.
    17. Darouich, Hanaa & Karfoul, Razan & Ramos, Tiago B. & Moustafa, Ali & Shaheen, Baraa & Pereira, Luis S., 2021. "Crop water requirements and crop coefficients for jute mallow (Corchorus olitorius L.) using the SIMDualKc model and assessing irrigation strategies for the Syrian Akkar region," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 255(C).
    18. Escarabajal-Henarejos, D. & Fernández-Pacheco, D.G. & Molina-Martínez, J.M. & Martínez-Molina, L. & Ruiz-Canales, A., 2015. "Selection of device to determine temperature gradients for estimating evapotranspiration using energy balance method," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 151(C), pages 136-147.
    19. Gao, Yang & Yang, Linlin & Shen, Xiaojun & Li, Xinqiang & Sun, Jingsheng & Duan, Aiwang & Wu, Laosheng, 2014. "Winter wheat with subsurface drip irrigation (SDI): Crop coefficients, water-use estimates, and effects of SDI on grain yield and water use efficiency," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 146(C), pages 1-10.
    20. Jovanovic, N. & Pereira, L.S. & Paredes, P. & Pôças, I. & Cantore, V. & Todorovic, M., 2020. "A review of strategies, methods and technologies to reduce non-beneficial consumptive water use on farms considering the FAO56 methods," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 239(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jagris:v:14:y:2024:i:4:p:510-:d:1361874. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.