Assessment of Surface Energy Balance in Southern Idaho

Proper management of water resources is always a matter of concern in arid regions like southern Idaho where rainfall is always a limiting case and the moisture level of atmospheric air is below threshold level most of the time throughout a year. For the proper assessment of water resources in this region it is necessary to quantify the ET loss in this region and use the available water resources efficiently. A vast quantity of water is moving in the atmosphere under the direct influence of solar energy. Therefore, it is important to understand the energy balance to characterize the behavior of the water cycle of a particular region. Evapotranspiration (ET) is an important phenomenon in the water cycle for the estimation and evaluation of the available water resources. If we understand how ET is changing over space and time, then we can more accurately calculate the crop water requirement (CWR) at a high resolution for that region. This can help farmers in managing water resources very efficiently. Current research has difficulty in projecting how ET is going to change over different locations in the future. Therefore, through this research we are trying to understand the partition of the energy balance components and quantify them to help the water management in southern Idaho. To support this research, we will use the data from both Land Surface Hydrology Model and field observations and present the trends in surface energy balance components, including net radiation, latent (ET), sensible and ground heat fluxes