{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,7,30]],"date-time":"2026-07-30T16:00:34Z","timestamp":1785427234708,"version":"3.56.0"},"reference-count":47,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"14","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,7,10]],"date-time":"2026-07-10T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1783641600000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"DOI":"10.13039\/100006785","name":"Google","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["103808"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["103808"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/100006785","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]},{"award":["103808"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["103808"]}],"id":[{"id":"https:\/\/ror.org\/00njsd438","id-type":"ROR","asserted-by":"publisher"}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Sensors"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Accurate estimation of evapotranspiration (ET) is critical for irrigation management in water-scarce regions such as the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). This study compares sensible heat flux (H), latent heat flux (LE), and ET derived from eddy covariance (EC) and a boundary-layer scintillometer (BLS) operated with an aperture reducer, deployed simultaneously over an irrigated late-season potato field (1.8 ha) in the Beqaa Valley, Lebanon. Satellite NDVI observations indicate that the BLS\u2013EC overlap period (13 October\u201327 November 2021) sampled the crop from peak canopy (NDVI \u2248 0.85\u20130.90) through the onset of senescence (NDVI \u2248 0.79). The BLS (Scintec BLS900) operated along a 140 m path. The EC system showed incomplete daytime energy-balance closure, with a regression slope of \u22480.69 and a seasonal Bowen-ratio-preserving correction factor of CF = 1.24 (a ~19% closure deficit) was used. Across the matched period, daily H from the BLS was strongly correlated with EC (r \u2248 0.82) but systematically lower, with a regression slope of \u22480.63 that persisted across timescales; this scale-invariant amplitude compression reflects the path-averaged, similarity-based nature of the scintillometer retrieval rather than the EC closure deficit, which instead governs the mean bias. BLS-derived daily ET showed a systematic positive bias relative to uncorrected EC (mean bias error, MBE = +0.30 mm d\u22121; +16% cumulative). Applying the Bowen-ratio-preserving correction (CF = 1.24) to EC reduced this to MBE = \u22120.14 mm d\u22121 (\u22126%), and the residual-to-LE correction yielded MBE = \u22120.15 mm d\u22121 (\u22126.4%); the latter comparison is only partly independent, as both methods share the same Rn and G. The Bowen-ratio-preserving method is therefore recommended for this dataset. Overall, the BLS captured the temporal variability of crop water use well, but residual-based ET estimates require careful treatment of the energy-balance-closure gap and are sensitive to the high BLS gap fraction (61.6% of 15 min records over the overlap, exceeding 90% at night). Once EC is closure-corrected to serve as the reference, the BLS offers a cost-effective alternative for field-scale ET monitoring in the MENA region, subject to the conditional agreement documented here.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/s26144398","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,7,10]],"date-time":"2026-07-10T15:13:36Z","timestamp":1783696416000},"page":"4398","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["Eddy Covariance vs. Reduced-Aperture Scintillometry for Potato Crop Evapotranspiration in the Beqaa Valley, Lebanon"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"26","author":[{"given":"George","family":"Rahhal","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Agriculture, Faculty of Agricultural and Food Sciences, American University of Beirut, Beirut 1107 2020, Lebanon"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-2612-3191","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Hadi","family":"Jaafar","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Agriculture, Faculty of Agricultural and Food Sciences, American University of Beirut, Beirut 1107 2020, Lebanon"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,7,10]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","first-page":"681","article-title":"Water and conflict in the Middle East and North Africa","volume":"44","author":"Keulertz","year":"2019","journal-title":"Water Int."},{"key":"ref_2","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"31","DOI":"10.1016\/S0168-1923(02)00041-2","article-title":"Seasonal and interannual variation in evapotranspiration, energy balance and surface conductance in a northern temperate grassland","volume":"112","author":"Wever","year":"2002","journal-title":"Agric. 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