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Gene-Expression Programming for Short-Term Forecasting of Daily Reference Evapotranspiration Using Public Weather Forecast Information

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Abstract

This study aimed to forecast the daily reference evapotranspiration (ETo) using a gene-expression programming (GEP) algorithm with limited public weather forecast information over Gaoyou station, located in Jiangsu province, China. To calibrate and validate the gene-expression code, important meteorological data and weather forecast information were collected from the local meteorological station and public weather media, respectively. The GEP algebraic formulation was successfully constructed based only on daily minimum and maximum air temperature using the true FAO56 Penman-Monteith (PM) set as reference values. The performance of the models was then assessed using the correlation coefficient (R), root mean squared error (RMSE), root relative squared error (RRSE) and mean absolute error (MAE). The study demonstrated that GEP is able to calibrate ETo (all errors ≤0.990 mm/day, R = 0.832–0.866) and forecast the daily ETo with good accuracy (RMSE = 1.207 mm/day, MAE = 0.902 mm/day, RRSE = 0.629 mm/day, R = 0.777). The model accuracies slightly decreased over a 7-day forecast lead-time. These results suggest that the GEP algorithm can be considered as a deployable tool for ETo forecast to anticipate decision on short-term irrigation schedule in the study zone.

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Acknowledgements

This work was financially supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology of China under the National Key Research & Development (R&D) Plan (2016YFC0400101) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (91647204). The observed meteorological data obtained from the China Meteorological Data Sharing Service System (http://cdc.cma.gov.cn) and weather forecast data from Weather China (http://www.weather.com.cn) are gratefully acknowledged.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, 77843, USA

    Seydou Traore, Yufeng Luo & Guy Fipps

  2. State Key Laboratory of Water Resources and Hydropower Engineering Science, Wuhan University, Wuhan, Hubei, 430072, China

    Yufeng Luo

Authors
  1. Seydou Traore
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  2. Yufeng Luo
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  3. Guy Fipps
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Correspondence to Seydou Traore or Yufeng Luo.

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Traore, S., Luo, Y. & Fipps, G. Gene-Expression Programming for Short-Term Forecasting of Daily Reference Evapotranspiration Using Public Weather Forecast Information. Water Resour Manage 31, 4891–4908 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11269-017-1784-5

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