Aboveground biomass allocation, additive biomass and carbon sequestration models for Pterocarpus erinaceus Poir. in Burkina Faso

Abstract

Efforts to develop allometric models for accurate estimation of biomass and carbon sequestration in Sub-Saharan African savanna ecosystems remain inconclusive. Most available allometric models are not site-specific, and hence do not account for the effects of regional climate variabilities on tree growth and capacity to sequester carbon. In contrast, site-specific biomass allometric models constitute a robust tool for forest and carbon emission management in the context of the reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation program (REDDþ). Although site-specific models have been developed for several tropical tree species, such models do not exist for Pterocarpus erinaceus in Burkina Faso. In this study, we investigated biomass fraction patterns and used a system of additive allometric models for predicting aboveground biomass and carbon stocks of P. erinaceus components. Thirty P. erinaceus trees were destructively sampled to estimate the biomass of their stems, branches and leaves. The biomass fraction of each component was assessed and its relationship with tree diameter at breast height (dbh) examined. The best allometric equations of the tree components, selected from three non-linear models with dbh, height (ht) and crown diameter (C d ) as predictors, were combined to develop an additive allometric model, using the Seemingly Unrelated Regressions (SUR) method. The Ash method was then used to estimate the carbon content of the different components. Leaf and stem biomass fractions decreased when the dbh increased, whereas a reverse trend was observed for branch biomass. Dbh was the most correlated independent variable with all biomass components. AGB ¼ e À3.46 (dbh) 1.62 þe À2.45 (dbh) 2.31 þe À2.68 (dbh) was the most appropriate additive allometric equation for estimating the biomass of P. erinaceus trees. The carbon content of the leaves, branches and stems was 55.73%, 56.68% and 56.23%, respectively. The developed allometric equations can be used to accurately estimate the aboveground biomass of P. erinaceus in the savannas of Burkina Faso and other similar ecosystems in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Prediction of aboveground biomass and carbon stock of Balanites aegyptiaca, a multipurpose species in Burkina Faso

“…What matters is therefore to use the additivity method in fitting models to allow an TAGB prediction with less bias as possible. Several methods exist in this area, but seemingly unrelated regression (SUR) is widely use in recent studies in Burkina Faso ( Dimobe et al., 2018 ; Ganamé et al., 2020 ), because it creates compatibility between the prediction of the tree's components biomass and TAGB ( Parresol et al., 2001 ).…”

Allometric Models for Predicting Biomass and Carbon Pools of Boscia Senegalensis(Pers.) Lam. Ex Poir. (Capparaceae) Populations in Central Africa: A Case Study from Cameroon

“…In addition, this variable is always available in the inventory data. Numerous studies have also shown that DBH is the explanatory variable most commonly used for predicting the biomass of different compartments of woody species [10,11,36,69].…”

“…The incorporation of total height and wood density was therefore necessary to improve the quality of prediction of the biomass of leaves and branches of B. senegalensis in the zone studies. Some authors believe that the use of DBH alone as an explanatory variable would lead to an increase in the predicted biomass [21,36]. Previous studies have shown that incorporating height as a second variable improves the prediction performance of elaborate equations [10,26,36,70] and has the advantage of increasing the potential of applicability of the equations to different sites [71].…”

“…WD is determined from wood samples in laboratory as a ratio of dry mass to the green volume [31]. Literatures [32][33][34][35][36][37] list these variables according to their importance as dbh, WD, and ht in explaining tree biomass variations and dbh and ht for tree volume [32][33][34][35][36][37]. Among the three explanatory variables, tree dbh and ht have been often used as only explanatory variables to develop biomass allometric models [31].…”

“…Although allometric models exist for Africa [35,36,37] , these are generally limited in their applications by the dbh range used for the model calibration, uneven distribution of the dbh within the dbh range, the type and number of tree species used in developing the models, ecological zones, and the type and number of explanatory variables used [38]. Due to lack of local allometric models for some sub-Saharan African countries rely on pantropic models such as the ones developed by [30] for the estimation of local AGB and BGB.…”