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Main Authors: Sun, Yiming, Yu, Runlong, Dong, Rongchao, Chen, Shuo, Liu, Licheng, Oh, Youmi, Zhuang, Qianlai, Xie, Yiqun, Jia, Xiaowei
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.03531
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author Sun, Yiming
Yu, Runlong
Dong, Rongchao
Chen, Shuo
Liu, Licheng
Oh, Youmi
Zhuang, Qianlai
Xie, Yiqun
Jia, Xiaowei
author_facet Sun, Yiming
Yu, Runlong
Dong, Rongchao
Chen, Shuo
Liu, Licheng
Oh, Youmi
Zhuang, Qianlai
Xie, Yiqun
Jia, Xiaowei
contents Accurate prediction of terrestrial ecosystem carbon fluxes (e.g., CO$_2$, GPP, and CH$_4$) is essential for understanding the global carbon cycle and managing its impacts. However, prediction remains challenging due to strong spatiotemporal heterogeneity: ecosystem flux responses are constrained by slowly varying regime conditions, while short-term fluctuations are driven by high-frequency dynamic forcings. Most existing learning-based approaches treat environmental covariates as a homogeneous input space, implicitly assuming a global response function, which leads to brittle generalization across heterogeneous ecosystems. In this work, we propose Role-Aware Conditional Inference (RACI), a process-informed learning framework that formulates ecosystem flux prediction as a conditional inference problem. RACI employs hierarchical temporal encoding to disentangle slow regime conditioners from fast dynamic drivers, and incorporates role-aware spatial retrieval that supplies functionally similar and geographically local context for each role. By explicitly modeling these distinct functional roles, RACI enables a model to adapt its predictions across diverse environmental regimes without training separate local models or relying on fixed spatial structures. We evaluate RACI across multiple ecosystem types (wetlands and agricultural systems), carbon fluxes (CO$_2$, GPP, CH$_4$), and data sources, including both process-based simulations and observational measurements. Across all settings, RACI consistently outperforms competitive spatiotemporal baselines, demonstrating improved accuracy and spatial generalization under pronounced environmental heterogeneity.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2603_03531
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Role-Aware Conditional Inference for Spatiotemporal Ecosystem Carbon Flux Prediction
Sun, Yiming
Yu, Runlong
Dong, Rongchao
Chen, Shuo
Liu, Licheng
Oh, Youmi
Zhuang, Qianlai
Xie, Yiqun
Jia, Xiaowei
Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
Accurate prediction of terrestrial ecosystem carbon fluxes (e.g., CO$_2$, GPP, and CH$_4$) is essential for understanding the global carbon cycle and managing its impacts. However, prediction remains challenging due to strong spatiotemporal heterogeneity: ecosystem flux responses are constrained by slowly varying regime conditions, while short-term fluctuations are driven by high-frequency dynamic forcings. Most existing learning-based approaches treat environmental covariates as a homogeneous input space, implicitly assuming a global response function, which leads to brittle generalization across heterogeneous ecosystems. In this work, we propose Role-Aware Conditional Inference (RACI), a process-informed learning framework that formulates ecosystem flux prediction as a conditional inference problem. RACI employs hierarchical temporal encoding to disentangle slow regime conditioners from fast dynamic drivers, and incorporates role-aware spatial retrieval that supplies functionally similar and geographically local context for each role. By explicitly modeling these distinct functional roles, RACI enables a model to adapt its predictions across diverse environmental regimes without training separate local models or relying on fixed spatial structures. We evaluate RACI across multiple ecosystem types (wetlands and agricultural systems), carbon fluxes (CO$_2$, GPP, CH$_4$), and data sources, including both process-based simulations and observational measurements. Across all settings, RACI consistently outperforms competitive spatiotemporal baselines, demonstrating improved accuracy and spatial generalization under pronounced environmental heterogeneity.
title Role-Aware Conditional Inference for Spatiotemporal Ecosystem Carbon Flux Prediction
topic Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.03531