Conversion Coefficient Analysis and Evaporation Dataset Reconstruction for Two Typical Evaporation Pan Types—A Study in the Yangtze River Basin, China

Abstract

For the day-by-day evaporation observation data in the Yangtze River Basin from 1951 to 2019, the effects of the gradual shift of observation instruments from 20 cm diameter evaporation pan (D20) to E601 evaporation pan after 1980 are discussed, including inconsistent data series, and missing and anomalous data. This study proposes a governance and improvement method for dual-source evaporation data (GIME). The method can accomplish the homogenization of data from different observation series and solve the problem of inconsistent and missing data, and we applied it in practice on data of the Yangtze River Basin. Firstly, the primary and secondary periods of the data were obtained by wavelet periodicity analysis; secondly, we considered the first cycle of observations to be representative of the sample and calculated the conversion relationship between the primary and secondary periods; thirdly, the conversion coefficient between the dual-source observations was calculated, and the results were corrected for stations outside the main cycle; finally, the daily evaporation dataset of E601 pan was established through data fusion and interpolation technology. The study found that the annual average conversion coefficients of the D20 and E601 pans in the Yangtze River Basin are basically between 0.55 and 0.80, and there are obvious differences in different regions. The conversion coefficient is positively correlated with relative humidity, wind speed, minimum temperature and altitude; and negatively correlated with sunshine duration, average temperature and maximum temperature. Evaporation is high in the upper reaches of the basin and low in the middle and lower reaches; in particular, evaporation is highest in the southwest, which is associated with the drought hazards. In addition, the article presents the spatial distribution of the conversion coefficients of D20 and E601 pans in the Yangtze River Basin. The results can realize the rapid correction of the evaporation data of the local meteorological department, and can be extended to the processing of other types of data in similar areas.