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Representativeness of FLUXNET sites across Latin America
  • Samuel Villarreal,
  • Rodrigo Vargas
Samuel Villarreal
University of Delaware
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Rodrigo Vargas
University of Delaware

Corresponding Author:[email protected]

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Abstract

Environmental observatory networks (EONs) provide information to better understand, model and forecast the spatial and temporal dynamics of Earth’s biophysical process. Consequently, representativeness analyses of EONs are important to provide insights for improving EONs’ management, design, and interpretation of their value-added products (e.g., datasets, model predictions). We assessed the representativeness of registered FLUXNET sites (n=41, revised on September 2018) across Latin America (LA), a region of great importance for the global carbon and water cycles, which represents nearly 13% of the world’s land surface area. Representativeness analyses were performed using a 0.05o spatial grid for multiple environmental variables, gross primary productivity (GPP) and evapotranspiration (ET) across LA. Our results showed a potential spatial representativeness of 34% of the surface area for climate properties, 36% for terrain parameters, 34% for soil resources, and 45% when all aforementioned environmental variables were summarized into a principal component analysis. Furthermore, there was a 48% potential representativeness for GPP and 34% for ET. Unfortunately, data from these 41 sites is not all readily available for the scientific community, limiting synthesis studies and model benchmarking/parametrization. We discussed the need to enhance interoperability, promote the participation of active/inactive sites to share information with local, regional and international networks, and promote monitoring efforts across this region of the world to increase the accuracy of regional-to-global data-driven products.
Mar 2021Published in Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences volume 126 issue 3. 10.1029/2020JG006090