Project Name:
SECA: Southwestern ECohydrological Array
Collaborators:
USDA-ARS scientists, university scientists, and other government agencies
Goals/purpose:
The Southwestern Ecohydrology Array (SECA) was established to examine how climate variability, changing vegetation, and land management affect biosphere-atmosphere exchange processes across typical southwest U.S. semiarid ecosystems. Utilizing a regional network of eddy covariance flux towers across southeastern Arizona—including installations across 
A map of SECA sitessemidesert grasslands, shrublands, and mesquite savannas—we have continuously measured evapotranspiration and ecosystem productivity over the last two and a half decades. These data, which are shared openly the AmeriFlux and Fluxnet communities, have been used locally, to quantify ecosystem water balance, regionally, to gauge riparian water use and productivity, and nationally to globally to improve satellite and land surface models and better understand global water and carbon cycles. Another example for the use of this data is the LTAR Common Experiment brush management treatment evaluations, where control and treatment flux towers demonstrated that following aerial mesquite herbiciding and subsequent recovery, grass productivity increased and ecosystem carbon loss via respiration decreased relative to the control site.