Abstract: The performance of a land surface heat flux model known as the Common Land Model (CoLM) was investigated in arid and semi-arid areas, in desert grassland ecosystems over Central Asia. The model performance was tested for three sites; Fukang, the Aral sea, and Balhash Lake, and the characteristics of the land surface were also analyzed for these three sites. It was found that water status of the grassland ecosystem had a major impact on the pattern of energy flux. Sensible heat flux was the dominant component of the diurnal energy balance at the Fukang site and Aral sea sites, which displayed obvious drought characteristics. The dominant energy component was the latent heat flux at Balhash Lake site, which was less arid than the other sites. CoLM performed well in typical desert grassland ecosystems, and correctly described the diurnal variation in energy fluxes. The simulations for sensible heat flux and ground heat flux overnight were less accurate. At night, the simulated sensible heat flux was higher than the observed values, and the simulated ground heat flux was significantly lower than the observed data. The deviation was greater than 50 W/m² at each site. The model does not adequately describe the soil heat flux exchange process at night in arid areas which have a large temperature differential between day and night.