Everglades Depth Estimation Network (EDEN) for Support of Biological and Ecological Assessments
Evapotranspiration (ET) is a term used to describe the sum of evaporation and plant transpiration from the Earth's land surface to atmosphere. Evaporation accounts for the movement of water to the air from sources such as the soil, canopy interception, and water bodies. Transpiration accounts for the movement of water within a plant and the subsequent loss of water as vapor through stomata in its leaves. Potential evapotranspiration (PET) represents the evapotranspiration rate from a given surface without moisture limitation. Reference evapotranspiration (RET) is a representation of evapotranspiration from a hypothetical reference crop such as a green grass surface with a uniform height of 12 cm, actively growing, well-watered, and completely shading the ground. PET is used extensively in hydrologic modeling whereas RET is used primarily in agricultural, irrigation and regulatory applications. Solar radiation is the primary driving force in the ET process.
USGS estimates reference and potential ET on a 2-kilometer spatial resolution and daily timestep for the state of Florida. For more information on methodology and to download the complete data set, click here. EDEN extracts daily PET values (in millimeters) for EDEN gage locations from the gridded dataset and provides them through Explore and View EDEN (EVE). The ET datasets begin June 1, 1995 and data for each subsequent year is added as it becomes available, generally on an annual basis.
