JWSS - Journal of Water and Soil Science

The most important factor in determining crop water requirement is estimation of evapotranspiration (ET). Majority of the methodsestimate ET apply series of relatively complex formula,which is then used to determine crop evapotranspiration (ETc). The parameters used in aforesaid methods are: Solar radiation, wind speed, humidity, etc. Unfortunately, in Iran and many countries, long-term records of these parameters are not readily available. The purpose of this study is to calculate the Selianinov Hydrothermic Index that merely requires daily temperature and precipitation data in order to determine correlation coefficients (r) versus ET and Crop Water Requirement (CWR) of some agricultural crops of Iran. First, the Selianinov index is calculated from daily precipitation and temperature during the growth season. Further, the results are correlated against both ETc and CWR. The model results indicate inverse (negative) strong exponential and polynomial relations between the dependent and independent variables. Coefficient of determination (R2) for polynomial equations (on average 0.84) in all crops was better than exponential equations (on average 0.72). Correlation between Selianinov index and CWR indicates that coefficient of determination in both equations was close together (0.83 for polynomial equations and 0.82 for exponential equations).