authority: gcos
slug: evaporation-from-land
name: Evaporation from Land
domain: land
subdomain: biosphere
authority_id: gcos:evaporation-from-land
external_ids:
  nvs_uri: null
  # CF name preserved per GCOS technical guidance, which uses
  # water_evapotranspiration_flux for this ECV even though the
  # abiotic-only definition would more naturally use a pure-evaporation
  # CF name. The combined-ET child concept reuses the same CF name.
  cf_standard_name: water_evapotranspiration_flux
  iadopt_concepts:
    property: water-flux
    entity: land-surface
canonical_units: kg m-2 s-1
gcos_requirement_tier:
  threshold: null
  breakthrough: null
  goal: null
description: |
  Abiotic water vapour flux from the land surface — evaporation from soil,
  open water bodies (lakes, rivers, wetlands), and intercepted water on
  canopy surfaces. Does not include plant-mediated transpiration. Estimated
  from eddy-covariance towers (partitioned), GLEAM, PML, MOD16, ECOSTRESS
  and reanalyses; in practice satellite products report the combined
  flux because the biotic component cannot be remotely separated.
  Combined ET (evaporation + plant transpiration) is operationally tracked
  as the child concept [[evapotranspiration]].
theme: hydrology
demos: []
status: documented
sources:
  - https://gcos.wmo.int/site/global-climate-observing-system-gcos/essential-climate-variables/evaporation-from-land