This project is part of NASA/EOS project to estimate global terrestrial evapotranspiration from earth land surface by using satellite remote sensing data. MOD16 global evapotranspiration product can be used to calculate regional water and energy balance, soil water status; hence, it provides key information for water resource management.

Actual evapotranspiration map for Andean basins with MOD16.

The MOD16 provides the following layers:

global evapotranspiration (ET)
latent heat flux (LE)
potential ET (PET)
potential LE (PLE)

MOD16 datasets are regular 1-km2 land surface ET datasets for the 109.03 Million km2 global vegetated land areas at 8-day, monthly and annual intervals.

The MOD16 ET datasets are estimated using Mu et al.’s improved ET algorithm (2011) over previous Mu et al.’s paper (2007a). The ET algorithm is based on the Penman-Monteith equation (Monteith, 1965). Surface resistance is an effective resistance to evaporation from land surface and transpiration from the plant canopy.

Where to find the data?

If you are looking for monthly data this is the link:

ftp://ftp.ntsg.umt.edu/pub/MODIS/NTSG_Products/MOD16/MOD16A2_MONTHLY.MERRA_GMAO_1kmALB/

If your are looking for yearly data, please use this link:

ftp://ftp.ntsg.umt.edu/pub/MODIS/NTSG_Products/MOD16/MOD16A3.105_MERRAGMAO

Data is on hdf format and is able to open under QGIS or othes GIS software.