Measurement and Analysis of Free Water Evaporation at HaeNam Paddy Field

Class A evaporation pan has been used throughout the world to measure free water evaporation mainly by manual observation once a day. In this study, a new automatic water level measurement method is used for understanding of free water evaporation and numerical analysis. This new technique measures the weight of buoyancy bar in water, and does not need calibration because it is not affected by water density change with water temperature. Field observations of evaporation were made near Haenam Meteorological Station over paddy field located in southwestern Korea from 20 April to 30 May 2004 and the data from ten clear days (16 - 25 May) were used for this analysis. The observed total evaporation was about 50.7mm during this period whereas the estimated from an empirical equation was 50.4mm. As expected, the pan evaporation is well correlated with wind speed and the vapor pressure deficit between the water surface and the air.