National-Scale Biomass Estimators for United States Tree Species

By J. Jenkins, D. Chojnacky, L. Heath, R. Birdsey. Forestry sciences, 2003

1,522 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Estimates of national-scale forest carbon (C) stocks and fluxes are typically based on allometric regression equations developed using dimensional analysis techniques. However, the literature is inconsistent and incomplete with respect to large-scale forest C estimation. We compiled all available diameter-based allometric regression equations for estimating total aboveground and component biomass, defined in dry weight terms, for trees in the United States. We then implemented a modified meta-analysis based on the published equations to develop a set of consistent, national-scale aboveground biomass regression equations for U.S. species. Equations for predicting biomass of tree components were developed as proportions of total aboveground biomass for hardwood and softwood groups. A comparison with recent equations used to develop large-scale biomass estimates from U.S. forest inventory data for eastern U.S. species suggests general agreement (±30%) between biomass estimates. The comparison also shows that differences in equation forms and species groupings may cause differences at small scales depending on tree size and forest species composition. This analysis represents the first major effort to compile and analyze all available biomass literature in a consistent national-scale framework. The equations developed here are used to compute the biomass estimates used by the model FORCARB to develop the U.S. C budget. FOR. SCI. 49(1):12–35.

Subfields: Environmental Engineering, Global and Planetary Change, Nature and Landscape Conservation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/ad05fdfa6cb2e1aeafd37e77a610dd524d1fe8cb

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Citations in the corpus

Closing a gap in tropical forest biomass estimation: taking crown mass variation into account in pantropical allometries (2016, background): “For instance, Cannell (1984) observed that coniferous species have a lower proportion of crown mass (10–20 %) than tropical broadleaved species (over 35 %), whereas temperate softwood species were found to have a lower and less variable crown mass ratio (20–30 %) than temperate hardwood species (20–”
Allometric equations for estimating tree aboveground biomass in evergreen broadleaf forests of Viet Nam (2016, background): “…been related to AGB through a variety of model forms such as power, logarithmic, and exponential functions (Brown, 1997; Ketterings et al., 2001; Jenkins et al., 2003, 2004; IPCC, 2003; Basuki et al., 2009; Dietz and Kuyah, 2011; Johannes and Shem, 2011; Chave et al., 2005, 2014; Henry et al.,…”
A general Landsat model to predict canopy defoliation in broadleaf deciduous forests (2012, methodology): “From the tree data, we calculated total dry foliar biomass using the allometric equations in Jenkins et al. (2003).”
Developing Two Additive Biomass Equations for Three Coniferous Plantation Species in Northeast China (2016, methodology): “, Equation (1)), easy to fit to biomass data, requires only basic forest inventory data to apply in practice, and usually provides reasonably accurate predictions for many species and regions [11,14,19,55].”
Optimal Altitude, Overlap, and Weather Conditions for Computer Vision UAV Estimates of Forest Structure (2015, methodology): “Per-plot above ground biomass density (AGB; Mg·ha) at Herbert Run was estimated by allometric modeling of the DBH of all stems greater than 1 cm DBH within each plot [36].”
A compatible system of biomass equations for three conifer species in Northeast, China (2014, background): “Up to date, hundreds of biomass equations have been developed for more than 100 tree species around the world (e.g., Chojnacky, 2002; Jenkins et al., 2003; Zianis and Seura, 2005; Woodall et al., 2011).”
Effects of uncertainty in model predictions of individual tree volume on large area volume estimates (2014, background): “The data used to calibrate the volume models in this study (Table 1) were originally collected for a taper model study (Westfall and Scott 2010) encompassing the 24 states of the United States for which the regional FIA program of the Northern Research Station has inventory responsibility (Figure 1)”
Volume estimates of trees with complex architecture from terrestrial laser scanning (2008, background): “[32] found that branch biomass associated with hardwood species was about 70% of total biomass for small trees and as low as 20% for large trees (any tree over 30 cm DBH).”
Scaling from individual trees to forests in an Earth system modeling framework using a mathematically tractable model of height-structured competition (2015, methodology): “5, as it is in the model and in empirical reports (e.g., Jenkins et al., 2003; Wang, 2006).”
Intensive monitoring of forest ecosystems in Europe: 1. Objectives, set-up and evaluation strategy (2003, methodology): “Regarding the stem wood densities used, the data compare generally well with those presented in overview papers focusing on carbon pool and carbon sequestration calculations for representative European forest ecosystems (Nabuurs and Schelhaas, 2002) and on a national scale (Jenkins et al., 2003).”
Species-specific and general allometric equations for estimating tree biomass components of subtropical forests in southern China (2016, background): “2009), temperate (Ter-Mikaelian and Korzukhin 1997; Jenkins et al. 2003; Wang 2006; Zianis et al. 2005) and boreal (Berner et al.”