Evapotranspiration estimation is required for effective water management and crop planning. So that reference evapotranspiration was calculated using Hargreaves Samani and Penman Monteith method for Aurangabad district. The primary objective of this study is to investigate the possibility for application of the Hargreaves-Samani equation in Aurangabad district for computing daily reference evapotranspiration. An evaluation of the Hargreaves-Samani equation and its modifications proposed in literature is made by comparing daily estimates with Penman-Monteith results DSS_ET software was used to calculate reference evapotranspiration. Annual Average reference evapotranspiration for Aurangabad district was found to be 5.13 and 5.25 mm/day for Hargreaves and Penman method respectively. Statistical analysis was made to evaluate the performance of reference evapotranspiration methods by using standard deviation, was found 0.33 to 1.81 mm/day for Penman method and 0.24 to 0.89 mm/day for Hargreaves method. For Aurangabad district, its skewness coefficient value ranges between -1.30 to 1.64 during various meteorological weeks for Penman method and -2.05 to 1.07 for Hargreaves method.

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