Fuzzy logic model approaches to daily pan evaporation estimation in western Turkey

Evaporation is one of the fundamental elements in the hydrological cycle, which affects the yield of river basins, the capacity of reservoirs, the consumptive use of water by crops and the yield of underground supplies. In general, there are two approaches in the evaporation estimation, namely, direct and indirect. The indirect methods such as the Penman and Priestley-Taylor methods are based on meteorological variables, whereas the direct methods include the class A pan evaporation measurement as well as others such as class GGI-3000 pan and class U pan. The major difficulty in using a class A pan for the direct measurements arises because of the subsequent application of coefficients based on the measurements from a small tank to large bodies of open water. Such difficulties can be accommodated by fuzzy logic reasoning and models as alternative approaches to classical evaporation estimation formulations were applied to Lake Egirdir in the western part of Turkey. This study has three objectives: to develop fuzzy models for daily pan evaporation estimation from measured meteorological data, to compare the fuzzy models with the widely-used Penman method, and finally to evaluate the potential of fuzzy models in such applications. Among the measured meteorological variables used to implement the models of daily pan evaporation prediction are the daily observations of air and water temperatures, sunshine hours, solar radiation, air pressure, relative humidity and wind speed. Comparison of the classical and fuzzy logic models shows a better agreement between the fuzzy model estimations and measurements of daily pan evaporation than the Penman method.