Sturt Plains Flux Data Release 2025_v2
<br>This release consists of flux tower measurements of the exchange of energy and mass between the surface and the atmospheric boundary-layer using eddy covariance techniques. Data were processed using PyFluxPro (v3.4.21) as described by Isaac et al. (2017). PyFluxPro produces a final, gap-filled product with Net Ecosystem Exchange (NEE) partitioned into Gross Primary Productivity (GPP) and Ecosystem Respiration (ER).</br>
<br>The site is located on a low lying plain dominated by Mitchell Grass (<em>Astrebla</em> spp.). Elevation of the site is close to 250 m and mean annual precipitation at a nearby Bureau of Meteorology site is 640 mm. Maximum temperatures range from 28.4 °C (in June/ July) to 39.1 °C (in December), while minimum temperatures range from 11.2 °C (in July) to 24.4 °C (in December).</br>
<br>The instrument mast is 5 m tall. Heat, water vapour and carbon dioxide measurements are taken using the open-path eddy flux technique. Temperature, humidity, wind speed, wind direction, rainfall and net radiation are measured. Soil heat fluxes are measured and soil moisture content is gathered using time domain reflectometry.</br>
<br>Ancillary measurements taken at the site include LAI, leaf-scale physiological properties (gas exchange, leaf isotope ratios, nitrogen and chlorophyll concentrations), vegetation optical properties and soil physical properties. Airborne based remote sensing (Lidar and hyperspectral measurements) was carried out at the site in September 2008. Biomass harvest measured: mean live biomass 0.00 gm<sup>-2</sup> (standard error: 0.00), mean standing dead biomass 163.42 gm<sup>-2</sup> (standard error: 16.73), mean litter biomass 148.99 gm<sup>-2</sup> (standard error: 21.32), total mean biomass 312.40 gm<sup>-2</sup> (standard error: 30.80). Soil consists of: clay 14.47%, silt 51.23%, sand 34.30%.</br>
Simple
Identification info
- Date (Creation)
- 2025-10-01
- Date (Publication)
- 2025-11-06
- Date (Revision)
- 2025-12-10
- Edition
- 2025_v2
Identifier
Publisher
Author
University of Western Australia - Beringer, Jason (Professor)
35 Stirling Highway, Crawley, Western Australia, 6009, Australia
Crawley
Western Australia
6009
Australia
Author
Charles Darwin University - Hutley, Lindsay (Professor - Environmental Science)
Ellengowan Drive, Casuarina, Northern Territory, 0810, Australia
Casuarina
Northern Territory
0810
Australia
Co-author
Charles Darwin University - Northwood, Matthew (Research Officer Land-Atmosphere Program)
Ellengowan Drive, Casuarina, Northern Territory, 0810, Australia
Casuarina
Northern Territory
0810
Australia
Principal investigator
University of Western Australia - Beringer, Jason (Professor)
35 Stirling Highway, Crawley, Western Australia, 6009, Australia
Crawley
Western Australia
6009
Australia
Principal investigator
Charles Darwin University - Hutley, Lindsay (Professor - Environmental Science)
Ellengowan Drive, Casuarina, Northern Territory, 0810, Australia
Casuarina
Northern Territory
0810
Australia
- Website
- https://www.tern.org.au/
- Purpose
- The purpose of Sturt Plains Flux Station is to:<ul style="list-style-type: disc;"> <li>provide information as part of a larger network of flux stations established along the North Australian Tropical Transect (NATT) gradient, which extends ~1000 km south from Darwin 12.5 °S</li> <li>examine spatial patterns and processes of land-surface-atmosphere exchanges (radiation, heat, moisture, CO<sub>2</sub> and other trace gasses) across scales from leaf to landscape</li> <li>determine the climate and ecosystem characteristics (physical structure, species composition, physiological function) that drive spatial and temporal variations of carbon, water and energy fluxes</li> <li>determine if fluxes of carbon, water vapour and heat over the various ecosystems as derived from the various measurement techniques can be combined to form a comprehensive and consistent estimate of the regional fluxes and budgets across the landscape</li> <li>provide long-term consistent observations of energy, carbon and water exchange between the atmosphere and the ‘top end’ grassland.</li></ul>
- Credit
- We at TERN acknowledge the Traditional Owners and Custodians throughout Australia, New Zealand and all nations. We honour their profound connections to land, water, biodiversity and culture and pay our respects to their Elders past, present and emerging.
- Credit
- <br></br> The site is managed by the University of Western Australia and Charles Darwin University. The flux station is part of the Australian OzFlux Network and contributes to the international FLUXNET Network.
- Status
- Completed
Point of contact
University of Western Australia - Beringer, Jason (Professor)
35 Stirling Highway, Crawley, Western Australia, 6009, Australia
35 Stirling Highway
Crawley
Western Australia
6009
Australia
Point of contact
Charles Darwin University - Hutley, Lindsay (Professor - Environmental Science)
Ellengowan Drive, Casuarina, Northern Territory, 0810, Australia
Ellengowan Drive
Casuarina
Northern Territory
0810
Australia
Point of contact
Charles Darwin University - Northwood, Matthew (Research Officer Land-Atmosphere Program)
Ellengowan Drive, Casuarina, Northern Territory, 0810, Australia
Ellengowan Drive
Casuarina
Northern Territory
0810
Australia
- Topic category
-
- Climatology, meteorology, atmosphere
Extent
- Description
- In Mitchell Grass approximately 280km north of Tennant Creek, Northern Territory
N
S
E
W
))
Temporal extent
- Time period
- 2008-08-28 2025-03-11
- Title
- Beringer J., Hutley L. B., McHugh I., Arndt S. K., Campbell D., Cleugh H. A., Cleverly J., Resco de Dios V., Eamus D., Evans B., Ewenz C., Grace P., Griebel A., Haverd V., Hinko-Najera N., Huete A., Isaac P., Kanniah K., Leuning R., Liddell M. J., Macfarlane C., Meyer W., Moore C., Pendall E., Phillips A., Phillips R. L., Prober S. M., Restrepo-Coupe N., Rutledge S., Schroder I., Silberstein R., Southall P., Yee M. S., Tapper N. J., van Gorsel E., Vote C., Walker J. and Wardlaw T. (2016). An introduction to the Australian and New Zealand flux tower network - OzFlux, Biogeosciences, 13: 5895-5916
- Maintenance and update frequency
- Biannually
- GCMD Science Keywords
-
- BIOGEOCHEMICAL PROCESSES
- LAND PRODUCTIVITY
- EVAPOTRANSPIRATION
- TERRESTRIAL ECOSYSTEMS
- ATMOSPHERIC PRESSURE MEASUREMENTS
- TURBULENCE
- WIND SPEED
- WIND DIRECTION
- TRACE GASES/TRACE SPECIES
- ATMOSPHERIC CARBON DIOXIDE
- PHOTOSYNTHETICALLY ACTIVE RADIATION
- LONGWAVE RADIATION
- SHORTWAVE RADIATION
- INCOMING SOLAR RADIATION
- HEAT FLUX
- AIR TEMPERATURE
- PRECIPITATION AMOUNT
- HUMIDITY
- SOIL MOISTURE/WATER CONTENT
- SOIL TEMPERATURE
- ANZSRC Fields of Research
- TERN Platform Vocabulary
- TERN Instrument Vocabulary
- TERN Parameter Vocabulary
-
- ecosystem respiration
- Micromole per Square Metre Second
- lateral component of wind speed
- Metre per Second
- water vapor partial pressure in air
- Kilopascal
- net ecosystem exchange
- Micromole per Square Metre Second
- surface upward latent heat flux
- Watt per Square Metre
- downward heat flux at ground level in soil
- Watt per Square Metre
- surface net downward radiative flux
- Watt per Square Metre
- surface downwelling shortwave flux in air
- Watt per Square Metre
- soil temperature
- Degree Celsius
- surface upward sensible heat flux
- Watt per Square Metre
- air temperature
- Degree Celsius
- mole fraction of water vapor in air
- Millimole per Mole
- specific humidity
- Kilogram per Kilogram
- gross primary productivity
- Micromole per Square Metre Second
- water vapor saturation deficit in air
- Kilopascal
- surface friction velocity
- Metre per Second
- surface upwelling longwave flux in air
- Watt per Square Metre
- relative humidity
- Percent
- volume fraction of condensed water in soil
- Cubic Metre per Cubic Metre
- Monin-Obukhov length
- Metre
- net ecosystem productivity
- Micromole per Square Metre Second
- longitudinal component of wind speed
- Metre per Second
- enhanced vegetation index
- Unitless
- surface downwelling longwave flux in air
- Watt per Square Metre
- mass concentration of water vapor in air
- Gram per Cubic Metre
- thickness of rainfall amount
- Millimetre
- specific humidity saturation deficit in air
- Kilogram per Kilogram
- wind speed
- Metre per Second
- water evapotranspiration flux
- Micromole per Square Metre Second
- wind from direction
- Degree
- surface upwelling shortwave flux in air
- Watt per Square Metre
- surface air pressure
- Kilopascal
- surface upward flux of available energy
- Watt per Square Metre
- vertical wind
- Metre per Second
- surface upward mole flux of carbon dioxide
- Micromole per Square Metre Second
- magnitude of surface downward stress
- Kilograms per metre per square second
- mole fraction of carbon dioxide in air
- Micromole per Mole
- QUDT Units of Measure
-
- Micromole per Square Metre Second
- Metre per Second
- Kilopascal
- Micromole per Square Metre Second
- Watt per Square Metre
- Watt per Square Metre
- Watt per Square Metre
- Watt per Square Metre
- Degree Celsius
- Watt per Square Metre
- Degree Celsius
- Millimole per Mole
- Kilogram per Kilogram
- Micromole per Square Metre Second
- Kilopascal
- Metre per Second
- Watt per Square Metre
- Percent
- Cubic Metre per Cubic Metre
- Metre
- Micromole per Square Metre Second
- Metre per Second
- Unitless
- Watt per Square Metre
- Gram per Cubic Metre
- Millimetre
- Kilogram per Kilogram
- Metre per Second
- Micromole per Square Metre Second
- Degree
- Watt per Square Metre
- Kilopascal
- Watt per Square Metre
- Metre per Second
- Micromole per Square Metre Second
- Kilograms per metre per square second
- Micromole per Mole
- GCMD Horizontal Resolution Ranges
- GCMD Temporal Resolution Ranges
- Keywords (Discipline)
-
- Eddy Covariance
- AU-Stp
Resource constraints
- Use limitation
- The Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license allows others to copy, distribute, display, and create derivative works provided that they credit the original source and any other nominated parties. Details are provided at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
- File name
- 88x31.png
- File description
- CCBy Logo from creativecommons.org
- File type
- png
- Title
- Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence
- Alternate title
- CC-BY
- Edition
- 4.0
- Access constraints
- License
- Use constraints
- Other restrictions
- Other constraints
- TERN services are provided on an “as-is” and “as available” basis. Users use any TERN services at their discretion and risk. They will be solely responsible for any damage or loss whatsoever that results from such use including use of any data obtained through TERN and any analysis performed using the TERN infrastructure. <br /><br />Web links to and from external, third party websites should not be construed as implying any relationships with and/or endorsement of the external site or its content by TERN.<br /><br />Please advise any work or publications that use this data via the online form at https://www.tern.org.au/research-publications/#reporting
- Other constraints
- Please cite this dataset as {Author} ({PublicationYear}). {Title}. {Version, as appropriate}. Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network. Dataset. {Identifier}.
Resource constraints
- Classification
- Unclassified
- Environment description
- <br>File naming convention</br> <br>The NetCDF files follow the naming convention below:</br> <br>SiteName_ProcessingLevel_FromDate_ToDate_Type.nc<ul style="list-style-type: disc;"> <li>SiteName: short name of the site</li> <li>ProcessingLevel: file processing level (L3, L4, L5, L6) </li> <li>FromDate: temporal interval (start), YYYYMMDD</li> <li>ToDate: temporal interval (end), YYYYMMDD</li> <li>Type (Level 6 only): Summary, Monthly, Daily, Cumulative, Annual</li></ul> For the NetCDF files at Level 6 (L6), there are several additional 'aggregated' files. For example: <ul style="list-style-type: disc;"> <li>Summary: This file is a summary of the L6 data for daily, monthly, annual and cumulative data. The files Monthly to Annual below are combined together in one file.</li> <li>Monthly: This file shows L6 monthly averages of the respective variables, e.g. AH, Fc, NEE, <em>etc.</em></li> <li>Daily: same as Monthly but with daily averages.</li> <li>Cumulative: File showing cumulative values for ecosystem respiration, evapo-transpiration, gross primary productivity, net ecosystem exchange and production as well as precipitation.</li> <li>Annual: same as Monthly but with annual averages.</li></ul>
Distribution Information
- Distribution format
-
Distributor
Distributor
Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network
80 Meiers Road, Indooroopilly, Queensland, 4068, Australia
Indooroopilly
Queensland
4068
Australia
- OnLine resource
- NetCDF files (2025_v2)
- OnLine resource
- ro-crate-metadata.json
Data quality info
- Hierarchy level
- Dataset
- Other
- <br>Processing levels</br> <br>Under each of the data release directories, the netcdf files are organised by processing levels (L3, L4, L5 and L6):<ul style="list-style-type: disc;"> <li>L3 (Level 3) processing applies a range of quality assurance/quality control measures (QA/QC) to the L1 data. The variable names are mapped to the standard variable names (CF 1.8) as part of this step. The L3 netCDF file is then the starting point for all further processing stages.</li> <li>L4 (Level 4) processing fills gaps in the radiation, meteorological and soil quantities utilising AWS (automated weather station), ACCESS-G (Australian Community Climate and Earth-System Simulator) and ERA5 (the fifth generation ECMWF atmospheric reanalysis of the global climate).</li> <li>L5 (Level 5) processing fills gaps in the flux data employing the artificial neural network SOLO (self-organising linear output map).</li> <li>L6 (Level 6) processing partitions the gap-filled NEE into GPP and ER.</li></ul> Each processing level has two sub-folders ‘default’ and ‘site_pi’:<ul style="list-style-type: disc;"> <li>default: contains files processed using PyFluxPro</li> <li>site_pi: contains files processed by the principal investigators of the site.</li></ul> If the data quality is poor, the data is filled from alternative sources. Filled data can be identified by the Quality Controls flags in the dataset. Quality control checks include: <ul style="list-style-type: disc;"> <li>range checks for plausible limits</li> <li>spike detection</li> <li>dependency on other variables</li> <li>manual rejection of date ranges</li></ul> Specific checks applied to the sonic and IRGA data include rejection of points based on the sonic and IRGA diagnostic values and on either automatic gain control (AGC) or CO<sub>2</sub> and H<sub>2</sub>O signal strength, depending upon the configuration of the IRGA.</br> <br>Sturt Plains Flux Tower was established in 2008, and is currently active. The processed data release is currently ongoing, biannually.</br> <br></br>
- Title
- Isaac P., Cleverly J., McHugh I., van Gorsel E., Ewenz C. and Beringer, J. (2017). OzFlux data: network integration from collection to curation, Biogeosciences, 14: 2903-2928
- Abstract
- Isaac P., Cleverly J., McHugh I., van Gorsel E., Ewenz C. and Beringer, J. (2017). OzFlux data: network integration from collection to curation, Biogeosciences, 14: 2903-2928
Resource lineage
- Statement
- All flux raw data is subject to the quality control process OzFlux QA/QC to generate data from L1 to L6. Levels 3 to 6 are available for re-use. Datasets contain Quality Controls flags which will indicate when data quality is poor and has been filled from alternative sources. For more details, refer to Isaac et al. (2017).
- Hierarchy level
- Dataset
- Title
- Isaac P., Cleverly J., McHugh I., van Gorsel E., Ewenz C. and Beringer, J. (2017). OzFlux data: network integration from collection to curation, Biogeosciences, 14: 2903-2928
- Website
-
https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-14-2903-2017
Method documentation
- Title
- PyFluxPro
- Website
-
https://github.com/OzFlux/PyFluxPro/wiki
Method documentation
Reference System Information
- Reference system identifier
- EPSG/EPSG:4326
- Reference system type
- Geodetic Geographic 2D
Metadata
- Metadata identifier
-
urn:uuid/059746ef-6e37-4d17-8428-b22bd620c913
- Title
- TERN GeoNetwork UUID
- Language
- English
- Character encoding
- UTF8
Point of contact
- Title
- Sturt Plains Flux Data Collection
Identifier
- Codespace
- https://geonetwork.tern.org.au/geonetwork/srv/eng/catalog.search#/metadata/
- Description
- Parent Metadata Record
Type of resource
- Resource scope
- Dataset
- Metadata linkage
-
https://geonetwork.tern.org.au/geonetwork/srv/eng/catalog.search#/metadata/059746ef-6e37-4d17-8428-b22bd620c913
Point-of-truth metadata URL
- Date info (Creation)
- 2025-11-06T05:30:22.494282+00:00
- Date info (Revision)
- 2025-12-10T09:52:48.599289+00:00
Metadata standard
- Title
- ISO 19115-1:2014/AMD 1:2018 Geographic information - Metadata - Fundamentals
- Edition
- 1
Metadata standard
- Title
- ISO/TS 19115-3:2016
- Edition
- 1.0
Metadata standard
- Title
- ISO/TS 19157-2:2016
- Edition
- 1.0
- Title
- Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network (TERN) Metadata Profile of ISO 19115-3:2016 and ISO 19157-2:2016
- Date (published)
- 2021
- Edition
- 1.0
Identifier
Overviews
Spatial extent
N
S
E
W
Provided by
Associated resources
Not available