Modeling Crown Biomass for Four Pine Species in China

Forests

Wen-Tao Zou¹  Wei-Sheng Zeng⁵  Lian-Jin Zhang²  Ming Zeng⁴  E. K. Sadanandan Nambiar³ 

[1] Key Laboratory of Digital Earth Science, Institute of Remote Sensing and Digital Earth, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China; E-Mail:;Forestry Experimental Center of North China, Chinese Academy of Forestry, Beijing 102300, China; E-Mail:;Key Laboratory of Digital Earth Science, Institute of Remote Sensing and Digital Earth, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China; E-Mail;Research Institute of Management Science & Information Engineering, Hangzhou Dianzi University, Hangzhou 310018, China; E-Mail:;Academy of Forest Inventory and Planning, State Forestry Administration, Beijing 100714, China

关键词: biomass modeling;    combined variable;    crown biomass;    error-in-variable simultaneous equations;    mixed-effects model;   

DOI  :  10.3390/f6020433

来源: mdpi

【 摘 要 】

To analyze the main variables affecting crown biomass, we measured crown biomass and a number of variables describing tree size, such as stem diameter at breast height (D), tree height (H), crown width (Cw) and crown length (Cl), from 754 sample trees of four pine species in China, specifically, Pinus massoniana, P. yunnanensis, P. tabulaeformis and P. elliottii. In addition, we developed individual tree crown biomass equations and compatible branch and needle biomass equations based on one-, two- and multi-variable models using nonlinear mixed-effects modeling and error-in-variable simultaneous equations. The results showed that: (i) crown biomass was strongly correlated to D and H, and the new combined variables (D⁴/H) and (D²/H) were suitable for modeling two- and multi-variable crown biomass equations, respectively; (ii) the four species were ranked as P. yunnanensis, P. massoniana, P. elliottii and P. tabulaeformis from small to large based on estimates from crown biomass equations, and the crown biomass estimate of P. tabulaeformis was about 60% greater than that of P. yunnanensis; (iii) the ratio of branch to crown biomass increased with increasing D, and the four species were ranked as P. elliottii, P. tabulaeformis, P. massoniana and P. yunnanensis from small to large by the proportion of the branch to crown biomass; (iv) the mean prediction errors (MPE’s) of the crown biomass equations for the four species were less than 10%, which could meet precision needs for biomass estimation.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© 2015 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.