Cotton evapotranspiration and crop coefficient obtained by satellite images

Abstract

This research aimed determine cotton evapotranspiration - ETc and crop coefficient - Kc slope using the Surface Energy balance Algorithm for Land - SEBAL with TM-Landsat 5 images. We used eight images distributed throughout the cotton growth season on the Busato Farm located in Bom Jesus da Lapa, Médio São Francisco region, Bahia state (13°15’18” S, 43°25’05” W, 436 m). The Climate classification of region by Köppen is BSwh’. The net radiation was calculated from surface temperature, surface emissivity, vegetation index and albedo imagesn and calculated soil and sensible heats fluxes to obtain the latent heat flux and ETc. The NDVI vegetation index presented concurrent development with the crop season, with maximum values (0.80) 70 days after sowing - DAS. Values of Etc and Kc were, respectively, 0 a 5.0 mm day-1 e 0.65 in vegetation development period (7 e 70 DAS); > 6 mm day-1 e 1.18 during flowering and cotton bolls generation; and 2 mm day-1 e 0.66 in the crop cycle ending. Results show that NDVI is a good indicator of the development of cotton and ETc and Kc data are consistent with reports in the literature.