Abstract
Sensitivity analysis of reference crop evapotranspiration (ET0) is a study to measure the sensitivity of ET0 to the changes in meteorological variables. Climate change is one of the biggest challenges to human civilization as it brings significant effects to the water resources and crop production. During the recent years, the assessment of climate change impact on the ET0 estimation received a lot of attention and subsequently sensitivity analysis is carried out to test the sensitivity of ET0 to the meteorological variables. Accordingly, this study aims to estimate the ET0 data, select the best alternative method for ET0 estimation and analyse the sensitivity of ET0 to the changes of climatic factors in Peninsular Malaysia. The ET0 estimation models such as Hargreaves Samani, Blaney-Criddle, Makkink and Turc models were compared with FAO-56 Penman–Monteith. The statistical performances of the ET0 models were evaluated by using Root Mean Square Error (RMSE), Normalized Root Mean Square Error (NRMSE), Mean Absolute Error (MAE), Mean Bias Error (MBE) and the Coefficient of Determination (R2). The sensitivity analysis of ET0 was carried out by graphical approach, sensitivity coefficient approach, partial correlation coefficient, standardized regression coefficient and zero-order correlation coefficient. In general, the Turc method was suggested as the best alternative method for ET0 estimation in Peninsular Malaysia as the Turc method achieved the least RMSE, NRMSE, MAE and MBE values. Moreover, ET0 was the most sensitive to solar radiation, followed by relative humidity, maximum temperature, minimum temperature and windspeed.
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Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Malaysian Meteorological Department (MMD) for the provision of the meteorological data.
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This work is supported by Fundamental Research Grant Scheme, FRGS (Reference No: FRGS/1/2021/TK0/UCSI/03/3) and UCSI University through Research Excellence & Innovation Grant (REIG) under the project code REIG-FETBE-2020/039.
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Ng, J.L., Huang, Y.F., Yong, S.L.S. et al. Comparative assessment of reference crop evapotranspiration models and its sensitivity to meteorological variables in Peninsular Malaysia. Stoch Environ Res Risk Assess 36, 3557–3575 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00477-022-02209-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00477-022-02209-y