A modelling approach for simulation of water and carbon dioxide exchange between multi-species tropical rain forest and the atmosphere

An one-dimensional process-based SVAT model (Mixfor-SVAT) was developed to describe energy, water and carbon dioxide exchanges between vegetation canopy and the atmosphere at a local scale. Simulation of the energy, water and CO2 fluxes in Mixfor-SVAT is based on aggregated description of the physical and biological processes on the leaf, tree (plant) and stand levels that allows to apply this model for prediction of atmospheric fluxes for the different vegetation types from grasslands and agricultural crops to vertically structured mono-specific and mixed forest stands represented by one or by many different tree species, as well as for description of the flux partitioning among different canopy sub-layers and different tree species. Upper boundary conditions of the model are measured or predicted meteorological parameters (air temperature and humidity, wind speed, CO2 concentration, precipitation rate and global radiation) at some height above a plant canopy within the atmospheric surface layer. For simulation of exchange processes within a multi-specific forest stand Mixfor-SVAT uses both averaged and species specific biophysical parameters of the trees describing their structure (e.g. height, crown shape, stem diameter, root depth) and biological properties (e.g. leaf stomatal conductance, photosynthesis and respiration rates, etc.). Mixfor-SVAT assumes that trees of the different species are evenly distributed over some homogeneous ground surface area and that there are no differences in biophysical properties between the same tree species.