Adoption of IoT technology to estimate evapotranspiration from satellite imagery

Evapotranspiration is one of the most important components of energy and water balance. The most important way to get real large-scale evapotranspiration is to utilize satellite imagery and remote sensing. Implementation of evapotranspiration calculation algorithms such as SEBAL demands calculation of reference evapotranspiration and thus measuring air temperature, humidity and wind speed. Calculation of evapotranspiration is usually based on obtained information from the nearest weather stations to the study area, which can be error-prone. Therefore, in this study, IoT sensors were used to accurately measure air temperature at 2 m above the ground, as well as air humidity and wind speed in the study area. The study area is the farms of Moghan Agricultural Company in Ardabil province. In this study, 23 nodes were installed in a number of farms. The ground-based energy balance algorithm (SEBAL) was used to calculate the evapotranspiration using Landsat 8 images in 2015.