Brief description
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 Gatum Pasture flux station was established in January 2015, stopped in 2021 and was located on private farmland in south western Victoria, approximately 260km west of Melbourne and 15km north west of the nearest settlement, Cavendish (coordinates: -37.3903, 141.9716). Elevation of the site is 250m asl, and the local terrain has a very slight (<1°) south easterly aspect.
The ecosystem was a sown pasture dominated by phalaris (Phalaris aquatica L.) and subterrenean clover (Trifolium subteraneum L.) that was regularly fertilised with superphosphate. The pasture was intensively grazed by sheep and cattle. The grass canopy was thus generally <10cm tall, and largely died off during summer and early autumn. Mean annual precipitation was 736mm (Cavendish Bureau of Meteorology station [ID 089043], 1953-2021), and mean annual temperature was 19.2°C (Hamilton Airport Bureau of Meteorology station [ID 090173], 1983-2021).
The instrument mast was 3.5m tall. Fluxes of heat, water vapour and carbon dioxide were measured using the open-path eddy covariance technique (at height of 3m). Supplementary measurements above the canopy included temperature, humidity, windspeed, wind direction, rainfall, incoming and reflected shortwave radiation and net radiation. Soil moisture content was measured using frequency domain reflectometry, while soil heat fluxes and temperature were also measured.
Lineage
Data collected using standard eddy covariance and meteorological instrumentation on a 3.5m tower at the Gatum 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.Data Creation
Data is measured using standard micro-meteorological instrumentation on a flux tower.
Data is recorded on a data logger and is collected by the site PI.
Data quality control including removal of data outside plausible ranges, removal of spikes, exclusion of particular date ranges and removal of data based on the dependence of one variable on another is done using PyFluxPro.
Filtering for low-ustar conditions, gap filling and partitioning of NEE into GPP and ER are done using ONEFlux.
Notes
CreditWe 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 Gatum Pasture flux station was to:
- Identify differences in water use between pastures and plantations.
- Quantify evapotranspiration for use in and validation of simple catchment-scale hydrological models.
- Quantify long-term carbon exchanges (photosynthesis and respiration) between ecosystem and atmosphere.
Data Quality Assessment Scope
local :
dataset
The data have been quality controlled using the PyFluxPro software. Quality control checks applied to the data include:<ul style="list-style-type: disc;">
<li>range checks for plausible limits</li>
<li>spike detection and removal</li>
<li>dependency on other variables</li>
<li>manual rejection of date ranges</li></ul>
<br>
Specific checks applied to the sonic and IRGA data including rejection of points based on the sonic and IRGA diagnostic values and on either automatic gain control (AGC) or CO2 and H2O signal strength, depending upon the configuration of the IRGA.</br>
<br>If the data quality is poor, the meteorological data is filled from ERA5 reanalysis data and fluxes are filled using the Marginal Distribution Sampling method. Filled data can be identified by the Quality Controls flags in the dataset. </br>
<br>The ONEFlux software used to gap fill and partition this data set also applies a Median Absolute Deviation (MAD) filter to the carbon dioxide, latent heat and sensible heat before the gap filling step.</br>
Isaac P., Cleverly J., McHugh I., van Gorsel E., Ewenz C. and Beringer, J. (2017). Oz
doi :
https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-14-2903-2017
Data Quality Assessment Result
local :
Quality Result
No anomalous data detected after quality control.
Created: 2026-03-13
Issued: 2026-04-02
Modified: 2026-04-02
Data time period: 2018-01-01 to 2022-01-01
text: The Gatum flux tower is located was located on private farmland in southwestern Victoria, approximately 300km west of Melbourne.
User Contributed Tags
Login to tag this record with meaningful keywords to make it easier to discover
Point-of-truth metadata URL
Isaac P., Cleverly J., McHugh I., van Gorsel E., Ewenz C. and Beringer, J. (2017). OzFlux data: network integration from collection to curation,
doi :
https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-14-2903-2017
PyFluxPro
uri :
https://github.com/OzFlux/PyFluxPro
ONEFlux
uri :
https://github.com/fluxnet/ONEFlux
Pastorello, G., Trotta, C., Canfora, E. et al. The FLUXNET2015 dataset and the ONEFlux processing pipeline for eddy covariance data. Sci Data 7, 225 (2020).
- URI : geonetwork.tern.org.au/geonetwork/srv/eng/catalog.search#/metadata/cc3c9ca4-8ff2-4b7a-8adc-3f2ca83ef2f8
- global : cc3c9ca4-8ff2-4b7a-8adc-3f2ca83ef2f8
