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Comparison between gene expression programming and traditional models for estimating evapotranspiration under hyper arid Conditions

  • Interaction between Continental Waters and the Environment
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Abstract

Gene Expression Programming (GEP) was used to develop new mathematical equations for estimating daily reference evapotranspiration (ET ref) for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The daily climatic variables were collected by 13 meteorological stations from 1980 to 2010. The GEP models were trained on 65% of the climatic data and tested using the remaining 35%. The generalised Penman-Monteith model was used as a reference target for evapotranspiration (ET) values, with h c varies from 5 to 105 cm with increment of a centimetre. Eight GEP models have been compared with four locally calibrated traditional models (Hargreaves-Samani, Irmak, Jensen-Haise and Kimberly-Penman). The results showed that the statistical performance criteria values such as determination coefficients (R 2) ranged from as low as 64.4% for GEP-MOD1, where the only parameters included (maximum, minimum, and mean temperature and crop height), to as high as 95.5% for GEP-MOD8 with which all climatic parameters included (maximum, minimum and mean temperature; maximum, minimum and mean humidity; solar radiation; wind speed; and crop height). Moreover, an interesting founded result is that the solar radiation has almost no effect on ET ref under the hyper arid conditions. In contrast, the wind speed and plant height have a great positive impact in increasing the accuracy of calculating ET ref. Furthermore, eight GEP models have obtained better results than the locally calibrated traditional ET ref equations.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Alamoudi Water Chair, King Saud University, P.O. Box 2460, Riyadh, 11451, Saudi Arabia

    Mohamed A. Yassin & Abdulrahman A. Alazba

  2. Agricultural Engineering Department, College of Food and Agriculture Sciences, King Saud University, P.O. Box 2460, Riyadh, 11451, Saudi Arabia

    Abdulrahman A. Alazba & Mohamed A. Mattar

  3. Agricultural Engineering Research Institute (AEnRI), Agricultural Research Center, P.O. Box 256, Giza, Egypt

    Mohamed A. Mattar

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  1. Mohamed A. Yassin
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  2. Abdulrahman A. Alazba
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  3. Mohamed A. Mattar
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Yassin, M.A., Alazba, A.A. & Mattar, M.A. Comparison between gene expression programming and traditional models for estimating evapotranspiration under hyper arid Conditions. Water Resour 43, 412–427 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1134/S0097807816020172

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1134/S0097807816020172

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