Spatio-temporal variation of evapotranspiration and its linkage with environmental factors in the largest freshwater lake wetland in China

Study region

Poyang lake wetland

Study focus

Evapotranspiration (ET) is a critical parameter in the hydrologic and energy budget, and it is important for understanding spatio-temporal variations in ET in large lake wetlands. Monthly ET in the Poyang Lake wetland during 2008–2017 was estimated by the remote sensing ET retrieval model based on a Nonparametric approach (RS-NP). And the spatio-temporal variation of ET and the influencing factors were analyzed.

New hydrological insights for the region

The validation revealed the usefulness of the RS-NP model in a moist region and yielded a relative error of 6 % (12 %) in the wet (dry) season. Temporally, the average yearly ET was 884 mm with ET/P (precipitation) of 55 %− 65 %. The monthly ET/P ratio increased significantly from 40 %− 50 % from January to May to 90 %− 130 % from July to October. ET in June was lower by over 20 % than that in May and July with the lowest ET/P value (33 %). Spatially, relatively larger and lower ET occurred in the northern and southern parts, respectively. The main factors affecting ET variability were downwelling shortwave radiation (∼2/3 contribution) and water area (∼1/3 contribution) at the monthly scale. Precipitation and surface temperature dominantly controlled the hysteresis effects with a lag of one month and regulated LE monthly variations. This study improves our understanding of complicated water-atmosphere interactions and their linkages with environmental factors in large lake systems.