Evaporation plays a central but largely invisible role in the moisture dynamics of buildings and urban microenvironments. Local evaporation rates control water flux and material damage, and are altered by climate change. While potential evaporation PE (or potential evapotranspiration PET) can be estimated on the large-scale, there are few if any methods of making local PE measurements. We describe here a simple device (patch evaporimeter) for measuring PE at point locations on the surfaces of built structures. The device combines a sintered-quartz disc as a water reservoir and a low-cost remotely-readable humidity sensor to detect the drying time. The patch evaporimeter may be widely useful in monitoring evaporation rates in a variety of microenvironments.

中文翻译：

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一种局部测量水蒸发率的装置

蒸发在建筑物和城市微环境的水分动态中起着核心但很大程度上不可见的作用。局部蒸发率控制着水通量和材料损坏，并会因气候变化而改变。虽然可以大规模估计潜在蒸发 PE（或潜在蒸发蒸腾 PET），但几乎没有进行局部 PE 测量的方法。我们在这里描述了一个简单的设备（贴片蒸发仪），用于测量建筑结构表面上点位置的 PE。该设备结合了一个烧结石英盘作为储水器和一个低成本的远程可读湿度传感器来检测干燥时间。贴片蒸发仪可广泛用于监测各种微环境中的蒸发率。