Abstract. Nitrogen and water availability alter canopy structure and physiology, and thus crop growth, yielding large impacts on ecosystem-regulating/production provisions. However, to date, explicitly quantifying such impacts remains challenging partially due to lack of adequate methodology to capture spatial dimensions of ecosystem changes associated with nitrogen and water effects. A data fitting, where close-range remote-sensing measurements of vegetation indices derived from a handheld instrument and an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) system are linked to in situ leaf and canopy photosynthetic traits, was applied to capture and interpret inter- and intra-field variations in gross primary productivity (GPP) in lowland rice grown under flooded conditions (paddy rice, PD) subject to three nitrogen application rates and under rainfed conditions (RF) in an East Asian monsoon region of South Korea. Spatial variations (SVs) in both GPP and light use efficiency (LUE_cabs) early in the growing season were enlarged by nitrogen addition. The nutritional effects narrowed over time. A shift in planting culture from flooded to rainfed conditions strengthened SVs in GPP and LUE_cabs. Intervention of prolonged drought late in the growing season dramatically intensified SVs that were supposed to seasonally decrease. Nevertheless, nitrogen addition effects on SV of LUE_cabs at the early growth stage made PD fields exert greater SVs than RF fields. SVs of GPP across PD and RF rice fields were likely related to leaf area index (LAI) development less than to LUE_cabs, while numerical analysis suggested that considering strength in LUE_cabs and its spatial variation for the same crop type tends to be vital for better evaluation in landscape/regional patterns of ecosystem photosynthetic productivity at critical phenology stages.