Daly River Pasture FLUXNET Release 2026_r1 

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 as described by Isaac et al. (2017) for the quality control and post-processing steps. The final, gap-filled product containing Net Ecosystem Exchange (NEE) partitioned into Gross Primary Productivity (GPP) and Ecosystem Respiration (ER) has been produced using the ONEFlux software as described in Pastorello et al. (2020). This data set has been produced as part of the FLUXNET Shuttle project.
The Daly River Pasture flux station was located 62km south west of Pine Creek, Northern Territory.
It was established in November 2007. It was managed by Monash University (http://www.monash.edu.au/) and Charles Darwin University. It was destroyed by fire in September 2013. The Daly River Pasture flux station was part of the Australia Flux Tower network (OzFlux) and the international FLUXNET. This site contributed to the Australian Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network TERN (http://www.tern.org.au/).
The flux tower site is identified as tropical pasture, and the vegetation is dominated by species Chamaecrista rotundifolia (Round-leaf cassia cv. Wynn), Digitaria milijiana (Jarra grass) and Aristida sp. standing at approximately 0.3m tall. The soil at the site is a mixture of red kandosol and deep sand.
Elevation of the site is close to 70m and mean annual precipitation at a nearby Bureau of Meteorology site is 1250mm.
Maximum temperatures range from 37.5°C (in October) to 31.2°C (in June), while minimum temperatures range from 12.6°C (in July) to 23.8°C (in January). Maximum temperatures vary on a seasonal basis between 6.3°C while minimum temperatures vary by 11.2°C.
The instrument mast is 5 meters tall. Heat, water vapour and carbon dioxide measurements are taken using the open-path eddy flux technique. Temperature, humidity, wind speed, wind direction, rainfall, incoming and reflected shortwave radiation and net radiation are measured.
Ancillary measurements taken at the site include LAI, leaf-scale physiological properties (gas exchange, leaf isotope ratios, N and chlorophyll concentrations), vegetation optical properties and soil physical properties. Airborne based remote sensing (Lidar and hyperspectral measurements) was carried out across the transect in September 2008. 

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. 

The purpose of the Daly River Pasture Flux station was to: 1) Provide information as part of a larger network of flux stations established along the North Australian Tropical Transect (NATT) gradient, which extends ~1000km south from Darwin 12.5°S.
2) Examine spatial patterns and processes of land-surface-atmosphere exchanges (radiation, heat, moisture, CO2 and other trace gasses) across scales from leaf to landscape scales within Australian savannas.
3) Determine the climate and ecosystem characteristics (physical structure, species composition, physiological function) that drive spatial and temporal variations of carbon, water and energy fluxes from north Australian savanna.
4) Quantify fluxes over land use which includes grazing, introduced pastures and low stock density. 

Data collected using standard eddy covariance and meteorological instrumentation on a 15m tower at the Daly River Pasture site. The data were quality controlled using the PyFluxPro software package, see Isaac et al. (2017), which is available at https://github.com/OzFlux/PyFluxPro. Gap filling and partitioning has been done using the ONEFlux software package, see Pastorello et al. 2020, which is available at https://github.com/fluxnet/ONEFlux.