Dataset for "Evidence for widespread woody plant use of water stored in bedrock"

In the past several decades, field studies have shown that woody plants can access substantial volumes of water from the pores and fractures of bedrock. If, like soil moisture, rock moisture serves as an important source of plant-available water, then conceptual paradigms regarding water and carbon cycling may need to be revised to incorporate bedrock properties and processes. Here we present a lower-bound estimate of the contribution of bedrock water storage to transpiration across the continental United States using distributed, publicly available datasets. Temporal and spatial patterns of bedrock water use across the continental United States indicate that woody plants extensively and routinely access rock moisture for transpiration across diverse climates and biomes. Bedrock water access is not confined to extreme drought conditions. On an annual basis in California, the volumes of bedrock water transpiration exceed the volumes of water stored in human-made reservoirs, and woody vegetation that accesses bedrock water accounts for over 50 per cent of the aboveground carbon stocks in the state. Our findings indicate that, like soil moisture, rock moisture is a critical component of terrestrial water and carbon cycling.

CODE AVAILABLE ON GITHUB: https://github.com/erica-mccormick/widespread-bedrock-water-use
FOR MORE INFORMATION, SEE WEBPAGE: https://erica-mccormick.github.io/widespread-bedrock-water-use/