Evapotranspiration product set of 500 m resolution on the Qinghai-Xizang Plateau from 2011 to 2020

Evapotranspiration (ET) is an essential component of terrestrial water cycle, energy balance, and carbon cycle, and has significant impacts on ecosystem health and climate change. The Qinghai Tibet Plateau is also an important component of the global water cycle and ecosystem, and its water resources and ecological environment are of great significance to the development and survival of the Asian region. This study proposes a PT-SIMI (Shortwave Infrared Soil Moisture Index Based Priestley Taylor Model) model suitable for the unique characteristics of the Qinghai Tibet Plateau. In the PT-SIMI model, adjustments were made to the soil moisture constraint factor and fraction of green vegetation, and a remote sensing evapotranspiration estimation model more suitable for the Qinghai Tibet Plateau was developed. The estimation results were validated using on-site measured data, and the results showed that the PT-SIMI model has higher accuracy than the MS-PT (A Modified Satellite Based Priestley Taylor Model) and PT-JPL (Priestley Taylor Jet Propulsion Laboratory) models, making it more suitable for application on the Qinghai Tibet Plateau. On this basis, the PT-SIMI model was used to estimate the evapotranspiration of the Qinghai Tibet Plateau, and monthly, quarterly, and annual evapotranspiration product sets with a resolution of 500 meters from 2011 to 2020 were generated, which can be used for water resource management, drought monitoring, climate change, and ecological environment analysis of the Qinghai Tibet Plateau.