Evaluating evaporation methods for estimating small reservoir water surface evaporation in the Brazilian savannah

Abstract

Small reservoirs play a key role in the Brazilian savannah (Cerrado), making irrigation feasible and contributing to the economic development and social well-being of the population. A lack of information on factors, such as evaporative water loss, has an impact on the design and management of these reservoirs, as well as on regional water safety. Acquiring this information is crucial for hydrologists to develop more effective water resource management strategies and policies. This study assesses the performance of a diverse number of methods that are used to estimate evaporation and provides evaporation probability curves on a fortnightly period for small reservoirs in the Brazilian savannah region. Evaporation data were collected for a small water reservoir located in the Buriti Vermelho watershed, a typical dam of the Brazilian savannah region. Among the assessed methods, those of Kohler et al. (1955) and Linacre (1993) presented the best performances on both the daily and monthly scales for evaporation estimates. By simulating the evaporation rates for a timeseries, an increasing trend in evaporation was observed for the transition between the dry and wet seasons, jeopardizing double cropping in the region. The developed probability curves are an important tool for improving water resource planning and increasing the local water availability.