Estimation of daily evapotranspiration in gully area scrub ecosystems on Loess Plateau of China based on multisource observation data.

• The study used multisource observation data to analyze ET on Loess Plateau in China. • Actual ET from eddy covariance and simulated by HYDRUS-1D showed similar patterns. • The crop coefficient was determined around 0.8 for the actual evaporation. • Net radiation is the main factor affecting ET at daily and half-hourly time scale. • The asymmetric complementary relationship of evaporation was validated. Evapotranspiration is an important process in the hydrologic cycle. In this study, different types of daily evapotranspiration were accurately estimated and comparatively analyzed for 2020–2021 in the gully area of Loess Plateau, China with multisource observation data. The daily actual evapotranspiration was directly observed by the eddy covariance system and then compared with the daily evapotranspiration simulated by HYDRUS-1D, and they showed reasonable agreement and similar variability characteristics it with a correlation coefficient of 0.71. The FAO-56 Penman-Monteith equation was used to calculate the reference evapotranspiration and compared with the pan evaporation in the study area. The reference evapotranspiration has a single-peak pattern and seasonal variation, similar to the actual evapotranspiration process during the annual period. The crop coefficient had seasonal-variation characteristics and remained 0.8 in the mid-growth period. The correlation analysis between evapotranspiration and environmental factors at different time scales suggested that energy was the dominant factor affecting evapotranspiration in the study area. The validation results of the complementary relationship of evaporation indicated a significant asymmetric complementary relationship in the study area. Both generalized nonlinear complementary relationship functions have good applicability, but the performance of the sigmoid function was slightly better than that of the polynomial function. The results provided a reference for local water resource management and agricultural production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]