Gross Primary Production (gC/sq.m/yr)

Gross primary production (GPP) is the amount of biomass (units: gC/m2/yr) that plants create in a one year by capturing sunlight and CO₂ during photosynthesis. A production efficiency model was used to estimate GPP across South Africa. Carbon fluxes were calculated to represent the long-term mean conditions. The gross and net primary production (GPP, NPP) was calculated monthly and summed to a year using climatology of monthly weather for the period 1960 to 1990, and mean monthly FAPAR and PAR for period 2000 to 2012. There are thus 12 input files for each term, corresponding to the twelve months. The climatology averaging periods for climate and satellite data are different. For Fraction of Absorbed Photosynthetically Active Radiation (FAPAR), the MEdium Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MERIS sensor) dataset covers the period 2000 to 2012, and the Photosynthetically Active Radiation (PAR) dataset is also for this period. Units: gC/m2/yr