An observation dataset of carbon and water fluxes of a rainfed spring maize cropland in Shouyang, Shan Xi (2013~2020)

This study was conducted in a typical dryland agricultural area of the Loess Plateau. Given the current situation where long-term continuous carbon flux data for farmland ecosystems in arid regions of China is scarce, based on the Shanxi Shouyang National Field Scientific Observation and Research Station (113°12′E, 37°45′N), using the eddy covariance technique, a continuous long-term observational study of spring corn farmland was carried out for eight years (2013–2020, excluding 2018), providing a solid data foundation for evaluating the carbon balance of farmland and revealing the laws of carbon-water exchange and its environmental impact mechanisms. The observation indicators covered conventional meteorological data such as air humidity, air relative humidity, saturation vapor pressure difference, soil temperature, soil moisture, photosynthetic active radiation, net radiation, precipitation, etc., as well as core carbon-water fluxes such as net ecosystem CO2 exchange, ecosystem respiration, total primary productivity, latent heat flux and sensible heat flux. Finally, standardized data products at four time scales of 30 minutes, daily, monthly and annual were generated.