Daily Climate and Soil Moisture Data for the Southern Colorado Plateau Network Parks, 1980 – 2018 (ver. 1.1, November, 2023)

These data are daily climate, water balance, and soil moisture data for 270 plots in the National Park Service (NPS) Southern Colorado Plateau Network (SCPN) Inventory & Monitoring (I&M) network. Climate data was collected from a gridded, daily climate dataset, Daymet (https://daymet.ornl.gov/). Climate, alongside field-collected soils (SoilDepthsByPlot.csv) and vegetation information, were then used to drive a point based, daily, multi soil-layer, ecosystem water-balance model, SOILWAT2 (https://github.com/DrylandEcology/SOILWAT2). SCPN plots were established to capture the range of ecosystem conditions present in this network. Plant communities of the SCPN are a vital sign for this region, enhancing habitat, stabilizing soils, and moderating hydrology. However, these ecosystems are water-limited, and many plant and ecosystem processes are driven by the amount of water available in the soil profile (i.e. soil moisture). These data provide daily observations of gridded climate and predicted measures of water-balance (ie. transpiration, evaporation, etc.) and soil moisture availability for the last 38 years for 270 NPS plots and can be used to provide insight into plant and ecosystem processes.