Assessment of paddy rice evapotranspiration estimation methods based on comparisons of agricultural water supply

This study assessed evapotranspiration (ET) methods applying for estimation of paddy rice water demand based on agricultural water supply. The Modified Penman (MP) method and the Penman-Monteith (PM) method recently suggested by Rural Development Administration (RDA) were considered. The 6 Korea Rural Community Corporation (KRC) command areas located in Honam province were selected in this study. The climate characteristics were also analysed with the average annual and the growing season temperatures and rainfalls. As a result, the annual average and the growing season temperature showed the increased trend while the rainfall tended to decrease during 30 years. The paddy rice water demand found to be directly influenced by these climate trends as ET also affected by them. The higher values of paddy rice water demand were obtained from applying MP method compared to the one applying PM method. The lower differences were also obtained from MP method for the comparisons between the paddy rice water demand estimated by both methods with agricultural water supply. Therefore, these results suggest that the MP method is more desirable to use for estimating paddy rice water demand in order to achieve stability of irrigation designs and plans.