Distinction between transpiration and other sources for the evaporation of liquid water from vegetated land surfaces is important for understanding the control mechanisms of evaporation, for plant physiological interpretation, and for testing hydrological models. A number of approaches to partition eddy covariance total evaporation measurements into transpiration and other water vapour fluxes have recently been published. This review gives a timely overview over current partitioning approaches, examines where these approaches were applied and how results comply with independent information. Important conclusions on the robustness of the approaches in relation to the ecosystem types are provided, which is an excellent basis for choosing between existing approaches and for new developments.

Leaf inclination angle distribution is a key parameter for radiative transfer modeling and for proximal and remote sensing applications, and is an often-overlooked response of plants to stress in the short term (diurnal dynamics). Traditionally, measuring leaf inclination angles is labor-intensive. AngleCamV2 provides a continuous, low-cost system to assess leaf angle distributions that can be used to better constrain the retrieval of plant traits from radiative transfer model inversions, interpret signals such as sun-induced fluorescence that is highly dependent on the canopy architecture, and understand leaf inclination dynamics under water stress.