The evaluation of water evaporation from indoor swimming pools is a topic of considerable practical interest, since evaporation may cause the highest energy consumption of the pool plant. A purposely designed experimental apparatus was used to measure the water evaporation rate from a pool scale model inserted into a climatic chamber to control environmental conditions. The experimental data were obtained varying various parameters such as water temperature, air temperature, relative humidity and air velocity. The results were used to propose a prediction model for water evaporation which was compared to other methods found in the literature, showing a good agreement. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.