Improvement of FAO-56 method for olive orchards through sequential assimilation of thermal infrared-based estimates of ET

The aim of this study is to use the FAO-56-based single crop coefficient approach to estimate actual evapotranspiration (AET) of an olive (Olea europaea L.) orchard in the Mediterranean semi arid region of Tensift-basin (central Morocco) during two consecutive growing seasons (2003 and 2004). The results showed that using crop coefficients Kc suggested by FAO-56 method yielded an AET overestimation by about 18% when compared against eddy covariance measurements. Therefore, the determination of appropriate Kc values is required to accurately estimate crop water requirement of olive orchards in such water scarce area.