Dehati et al. (2025) Comparison and validation of spatial reference evapotranspiration datasets over Africa

⚠️ Warning: This summary was generated from the abstract only, as the full text was not available.

Identification

• Journal: Hydrological Sciences Journal
• Year: 2025
• Date: 2025-12-08
• Authors: Suzan Dehati, Bich Ngoc Tran, Poolad Karimi, Marloes Mul
• DOI: 10.1080/02626667.2025.2600684

Research Groups

Not specified in the provided text.

Short Summary

This study compares eight open-access global reference evapotranspiration (ET0) datasets against in-situ measurements from 165 weather stations across Africa to assess their performance across different climate zones. It finds that high-resolution datasets perform better in temperate and tropical regions, and that input data quality accounts for 60–70% of the variability among datasets.

Objective

• To compare the performance of eight open-access global reference evapotranspiration (ET0) datasets against ET0 estimated from 165 in-situ weather stations across Africa.
• To assess the datasets' accuracy across different climate zones (temperate, tropical, arid).
• To quantify the contribution of input data versus model implementation to the variability observed among the global ET0 datasets.

Study Configuration

• Spatial Scale: Continental Africa, with analysis across distinct climate zones (temperate, tropical, arid).
• Temporal Scale: Not explicitly stated, but implied to cover periods relevant for climatic conditions and ET0 estimation.

Methodology and Data

• Models used: Various ET0 models implicitly used in the generation of the eight global datasets; specific models are not named in the provided text.
• Data sources:
  • Eight open-access global ET0 datasets.
  • In-situ meteorological measurements from 165 weather stations across Africa, used to estimate reference ET0.
  • Statistical metrics for performance assessment: R², Bias, Root Mean Square Error (RMSE), and Relative Bias (RBias).

Main Results

• High-resolution global ET0 datasets demonstrate better alignment with in-situ data in temperate and tropical climates compared to low-resolution datasets.
• All datasets show low performance in arid regions, although this finding is less certain due to limited availability of weather stations in these areas.
• The quality of input data contributes 60–70% of the variability observed between the global ET0 datasets, with the remaining variability attributed to different model implementations.

Contributions

• Provides a comprehensive, continent-wide performance assessment of multiple open-access global ET0 datasets against in-situ observations in Africa, a region with significant data scarcity.
• Quantifies the relative importance of input data quality versus model implementation as drivers of variability among global ET0 datasets.
• Offers critical insights for selecting appropriate global ET0 datasets for water resource management and agricultural planning in data-limited regions.

Funding

Not specified in the provided text.

Citation

@article{Dehati2025Comparison,
  author = {Dehati, Suzan and Tran, Bich Ngoc and Karimi, Poolad and Mul, Marloes},
  title = {Comparison and validation of spatial reference evapotranspiration datasets over Africa},
  journal = {Hydrological Sciences Journal},
  year = {2025},
  doi = {10.1080/02626667.2025.2600684},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.1080/02626667.2025.2600684}
}