There have been many machine learning simulation studies based on eddy-covariance observations for water flux and evapotranspiration. We performed a meta-analysis of such studies to clarify the impact of different algorithms and predictors, etc., on the reported prediction accuracy. It can, to some extent, guide future global water flux modeling studies and help us better understand the terrestrial ecosystem water cycle.

A number of studies have been conducted by using machine learning approaches to simulate carbon fluxes. We performed a meta-analysis of these net ecosystem exchange (NEE) simulations. Random forests and support vector machines performed better than other algorithms. Models with larger timescales had a lower accuracy. For different plant functional types (PFTs), there were significant differences in the predictors used and their effects on model accuracy.