Partitioning of water and CO₂ fluxes at NEON sites into soil and plant components: a five-year dataset for spatial and temporal analysis

Abstract. Long-term time series of transpiration, evaporation, plant photosynthesis, and soil respiration are essential for addressing numerous research questions related to ecosystem functioning. However, quantifying these fluxes is challenging due to the lack of reliable and direct measurement techniques, which has left gaps in the understanding of their temporal cycles and spatial variability. To help address this open challenge, we generated a dataset of these four components by implementing five (conventional and novel) approaches to partition total ET and CO₂ fluxes into plant and soil fluxes across 47 NEON sites. The final dataset (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.12191876) spans a five-year period and covers various ecosystems, including forests, grasslands, and agricultural terrain. This is the first comprehensive dataset covering such a wide spatial and temporal distribution. Overall, we observed good agreement across most methods for ET components, increasing the reliability of these estimates. Partitioning of CO₂ components was found to be less robust and more dependent on prior knowledge of water-use efficiency. This dataset has several potential future applications, such as addressing critical questions regarding the response of ecosystems to extreme weather events, which are expected to become more severe and frequent with climate change.