Resumen
- Validated meteorological data are required to make climate assessments, related decisions and toappropriately compute other important parameters such as reference evapotranspiration (ET0), vital toaccurately estimate crops water requirements. In addition, quality meteorological datasets will increasethe reliability of the results obtained by scientific or technical models that use them. In semiarid regions,with a structural water deficit as province of Mendoza (Argentina), the integrity and quality of these dataare crucial to improve ET0estimates, ensuring an adequate irrigation water management. In this work,several quality assurance procedures were applied to meteorological data—as a pre-requisite for ET0computations—in order to detect erroneous and invalid data of each parameter from automated weatherstations located in the three irrigated areas of province of Mendoza (Northern oasis, Western oasis andSouthern oasis). Due to the lack and poor quality of solar radiation data, calibration of new based temper-ature solar radiation prediction models for each of the station are proposed. Results show the data flaggedfor each variable by range/limits, step, internal consistency and persistence tests, providing guidance ofgreat value to end users. Finally, a simple comparison of ET0estimations using original and validatedmeteorological datasets for each irrigated area in province of Mendoza is also reported.