Mapping evapotranspiration on vineyards: a comparison between Penman-Monteith and energy balance approaches for operational purposes

Estimation of evapotranspiration (ET) in Sicilian vineyard is an emerging issue since these agricultural systems are more and more converted from rainfed to irrigated conditions, with significant impacts on the management of the scarce water resources of the region. The choice of the most appropriate methodology for assessing water use in these systems is still an issue of debating, due to the complexity of canopy and root systems and for their high spatial fragmentation. In vineyards, quality and quantity of the final product are dependent on the controlled stress conditions to be set trough irrigation. This paper reports an application of the well-known Penman-Monteith approach, applied in a distributed way, using high resolution remote sensing data to map the potential evapotranspiration (ETp). In 2008 a series of airborne multispectral images were acquired on "Tenute Rapitalà", a wine farm located in the northwest of Sicily. Five airborne remote sensing scenes were collected using a SKY ARROW 351 650 TC/TCNS aircraft, at a height of about 1000 m a.g.l.. The acquisitions were performed encompassing a whole phenological period, period between June and September 2008 (approximately every three weeks). The platform had on board a multi-spectral camera with 3 spectral bands at green (G, 530-570 nm), red (R, 650-690 nm) and near infrared (NIR, 767-832 nm) wavelengths, and a thermal camera with a broad band in the range 7.5-13 µm. The nominal pixel resolution was approximately 0.7 m for VIS/NIR acquisitions, and 1.7 m for the thermal-IR data. Field data were acquired simultaneously to airborne acquisitions. These data include spectral reflectances in VIS-NIR-SWIR (shortwave infrared), leaf area index (LAI), soil moisture at different depths (both in row and below plants). Moreover, meteo variables were measured by a standard weather station whereas fluxes were measured by means of an Eddy correlation tower located within the field. The VIS-NIR bands were atmospherically corrected and calibrated in order to calculate albedo, NDVI and LAI, which represented the distributed inputs of the Penman-Monteith algorithm. Moreover a sensitivity analysis has been carried out on input parameters (such as albedo). A sensitivity analysis was carried out to highlight the variability of outputs (such as ETp) on the accuracy in the parameters assessment obtainable using high spatial resolution airborne images. Scale effects have been also investigated by means of an artificial degradation of images spatial resolution. Finally the relationship between stress factor evaluated as the ratio between actual and reference ET and pre-dawn leaf water potential has been also investigated.