Climatic Water Balance Analysis using NOAA/AVHRR Satellite Images

The purpose of this study was to analyze the climatic water balance of the Korean peninsula using meteorological data and the evapotranspiration (ET) derived from NOAA/AVHRR. Quantifying water balance components is important to understand the basic hydrology. In this study, a simple method to estimate the ET was proposed based on a regression approach between NDVI and Morton's actual ET using NOAA/AVHRR data. The Morton's actual ET for land surface conditions was evaluated using a daily meteorological data from 77 weather stations, and the monthly averaged Morton's ETs for each land cover was compared with the monthly NDVIs during the year 2001. According to the climatic water balance analysis, water deficit and surplus distributed maps were created from spatial rainfall, soil moisture, and actual and potential ETs map. The results clearly showed that the temporal and spatial characteristics of dryness and wetness may be detected and mapped based on the wetness index.