Synonyms
Evaporation; Water flux
Definition
Evapotranspiration (ET). The transfer of liquid water from open water and through plant transpiration to the atmosphere as water vapor.
Transpiration. The loss of water vapor through plant pores called stomata on leaves/needles or stems.
Basics of evapotranspiration
Evapotranspiration (ET) is the movement and transfer (i.e., flux) of water as a liquid at the Earth’s surface to the atmosphere as a gas. ET is a combination of open water evaporation and plant transpiration. (Sublimation, which is the transition of solid water (i.e., ice, snow) to vapor due to low atmospheric pressure (i.e., high altitude), dry air, and high sunlight, is generally considered separate from ET.) Sources of open water evaporation could include oceans, seas, lakes, rivers, ponds, puddles, and water on objects such as plants, buildings, rocks, the soil surface (including movement of water vertically through the soil to the surface), or in the context of measuring...
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Acknowledgment
This research was carried out at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under a contract with the NASA.
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Fisher, J.B. (2014). Land-Atmosphere Interactions, Evapotranspiration. In: Njoku, E.G. (eds) Encyclopedia of Remote Sensing. Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences Series. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-36699-9_82
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-36699-9_82
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