GIS-assisted spatially distributed modeling of the potential evapotranspiration in semi-arid climate of the Chinese Loess Plateau

Understanding potential evapotranspiration (PET) is essential in planning economic uses of water resource and in assessing the potential ecological conditions for ecological restoration. In the semi-arid western Chinese Loess Plateau. This work tested three models commonly used to estimate monthly PET rate (i.e. Behnk–Maxey, Prestley–Taylor and Hargreaves). The major purposes are: (1) to determine the model used to calculate PET with small data requirements and high accuracy in the Zuli River Basin; and (2) to calculate the areal distribution of potential evapo-transpiration in the study area.