Urban trees provide various important ecological services, the quantification of which is vital to sustainable urban development and requires accurate estimation of tree biomass. A limited number of allometric biomass equations, however, have been developed for urban species due to the prohibitive cost. Remote sensing has provided cost-effective means for estimating urban forest biomass, although the propagation of error in the estimation process is not well understood. This study aimed to offer a baseline assessment of the feasibility of estimating urban tree biomass with remote sensing-based general equations applicable to broad taxonomic groups by conducting a large urban tree inventory on a university campus. The biomasses of 191 trees of seven species from the inventory, separated into two categories (i.e., evergreen and deciduous), were calculated exclusively with urban-based species-specific allometric equations. WorldView-2 satellite imagery data were acquired to retrieve normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) values at the location, crown, and stand levels. The results indicated that biomass correlated with NDVI in varying forms and degrees. The general equations at the crown level yielded the most accurate biomass estimates, while the location-level estimates were the least accurate. Crown-level spectral responses provided adequate information for delivering spatially explicit biomass estimation. could be substantial [50][51][52], ranging from −97% to 205% depending on the individual species and the sizes of the trees [43]. Biomass estimates could even vary from 27% less to 29% more when applying the allometric equation developed for an individual urban species in California to the same species in Colorado because of considerable differences in site conditions [43].Considering the time and monetary cost of developing site-and species-specific allometric equations, it has been suggested to use general equations that are applicable to all species in a broad taxonomic grouping instead [43,53,54]. Such equations have been developed for 35 natural forest-grown genera on a national scale [39,40]. However, studies focused on developing allometric equations for general urban tree groups are scant [49], because urban-based equations over the entire range of site conditions are not available for compilation and synthesis [55].Another approach to overcome the prohibitive cost associated with the development of allometric equations is to utilize remote sensing and geospatial techniques [49,[56][57][58][59][60]. Remote sensing obtains information about the Earth's environment from a distance without the need for extensive field surveys over large areas. It has been used in several different ways as a non-destructive and cost-effective method for biomass estimation with varying degrees of success.Generated with Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) technology, point cloud data have been regularly used to measure urban tree biomass directly [58,[60][61][62] or extract basic silvicultural variables such as tree he...