Estimating the aboveground biomass in an old secondary forest on limestone in the Moluccas, Indonesia: Comparing locally developed versus existing allometric models

Stas, Suzanne M.; Rutishauser, Ervan; Chave, Jérôme; Anten, Niels P. R.; Laumonier, Yves

doi:10.1016/j.foreco.2016.12.010

Cited by 45 publications

(37 citation statements)

References 39 publications

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“…For example, the magnitude of AGB underestimation when small-size trees are not considered in biomass estimation, accounted for nearly 30% [60], between 12 and 49% [59], 25 and 45% [61] of total forest AGB. This, in turn, signifies the impotence of small-size trees in forest carbon storage [62]. Therefore, it is obvious that reliable biomass estimation might have considerable implications in allocations of funds among various priorities and application and attribution of international climate-change mitigation funds for restoration measures.…”

Section: Model Comparison and Importance Of Sitespecific Allometric Ementioning

confidence: 99%

“…The relative contribution of small-size trees to AGB stocks depends on forest type and severity of the disturbance [71]. For instance, in secondary forest, trees <10 cm stem diameter (dbh) accounted for 19% [62] and 24% [72]. Another study also found that understory woody plants (dbh <4 cm) contributes 30% of total AGB in an old field succession and 17% in a young secondary forest [73].…”

Section: Spatial and Temporal Variation In Agb And C-stocks Across Thmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Although trees <10 cm dbh can contribute considerably to AGB stocks in secondary and highly disturbed old growth forests, they are usually missing from the forest inventories (e.g. [8,74]), lead to underestimate the forest biomass when forest inventory data are used, particularly in young secondary forest dominated by small-size trees [8,59,62] The magnitude of estimated C-stocks in 3-7 years old exclosures exceeds the C-stock estimates in the CGL by about 50%, indicating the importance of exclosures to restore the degraded landscapes across the upper Blue Nile river catchment [16,66,75]. Estimated C-stocks in our study area were similar to estimated C-stocks in other grazing exclosures in northern Ethiopia [32,66].…”

Section: Spatial and Temporal Variation In Agb And C-stocks Across Thmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Mixed-species allometric equations and estimation of aboveground biomass and carbon stocks in restoring degraded landscape in northern Ethiopia

Mokria

Mekuria

Gebrekirstos

et al. 2018

Environ. Res. Lett.

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Accurate biomass estimation is critical to quantify the changes in biomass and carbon stocks following the restoration of degraded landscapes. However, there is lack of site-specific allometric equations for the estimation of aboveground biomass (AGB), which consequently limits our understanding of the contributions of restoration efforts in mitigating climate change. This study was conducted in northwestern Ethiopia to develop a multi-species allometric equation and investigate the spatial and temporal variation of C-stocks following the restoration of degraded landscapes. We harvested and weighed 84 trees from eleven dominant species from six grazing exclosures and adjacent communal grazing land. We observed that AGB correlates significantly with diameter at stump height D 30 (R 2 = 0.78; P < 0.01), and tree height H (R 2 = 0.41, P < 0.05). Our best model, which includes D 30 and H as predictors explained 82% of the variations in AGB. This model produced the lowest bias with narrow ranges of errors across different diameter classes. Estimated C-stock showed a significant positive correlation with stem density (R 2 = 0.80, P < 0.01) and basal area (R 2 = 0.84, P < 0.01). At the watershed level, the mean C-stock was 3.8 (±0.5) Mg C ha −1 . Plot-level C-stocks varied between 0.1 and 13.7 Mg C ha −1 . Estimated C-stocks in three-and seven-year-old exclosures exceeded estimated C-stock in the communal grazing land by 50%. The species that contribute most to C-stocks were Leucaena sp. (28%), Calpurnia aurea (21%), Euclea racemosa (20.9%), and Dodonaea angustifolia (15.8%). The equations developed in this study allow monitoring changes in C-stocks and C-sequestration following the implementation of restoration practices in northern Ethiopia over space and time. The estimated C-stocks can be used as a reference against which future changes in C-stocks can be compared.

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Section: Model Comparison and Importance Of Sitespecific Allometric Ementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Spatial and Temporal Variation In Agb And C-stocks Across Thmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Spatial and Temporal Variation In Agb And C-stocks Across Thmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Mixed-species allometric equations and estimation of aboveground biomass and carbon stocks in restoring degraded landscape in northern Ethiopia

Mokria

Mekuria

Gebrekirstos

et al. 2018

Environ. Res. Lett.

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“…A previous study estimated that 40 years of carbon storage in regenerating tropical forests from Latin America offset the past 19 years of carbon emissions from fossil fuels and industrial production in this region (Chazdon et al, 2016). Thus, there has been much interest in quantifying the ability of tropical secondary forests to sequester carbon in order to reduce uncertainties in the global carbon balance (e.g., Chai, 1997;Lohbeck et al, 2015;Stas et al, 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Forest aboveground biomass stock and resilience in a tropical landscape of Thailand

et al. 2020

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Half of Asian tropical forests were disturbed in the last century resulting in the dominance of secondary forests in Southeast Asia. However, the rate at which biomass accumulates during the recovery process in these forests is poorly understood. We studied a forest landscape located in Khao Yai National Park (Thailand) that experienced strong disturbances in the last century due to clearance by swidden farmers. Combining recent field and airborne laser scanning (ALS) data, we first built a high-resolution aboveground biomass (AGB) map of over 60 km 2 of forest landscape. We then used the random forest algorithm and Landsat time series (LTS) data to classify landscape patches as non-forested versus forested on an almost annual basis from 1972 to 2017. The resulting chronosequence was then used in combination with the AGB map to estimate forest carbon recovery rates in secondary forest patches during the first 42 years of succession. The ALS-AGB model predicted AGB with an error of 14 % at 0.5 ha resolution (RMSE = 45 Mg ha −1 ) using the mean top-of-canopy height as a single predictor. The mean AGB over the landscape was 291 Mg ha −1 , showing a high level of carbon storage despite past disturbance history. We found that AGB recovery varies non-linearly in the first 42 years of the succession, with an increasing rate of accumulation through time. We predicted a mean AGB recovery rate of 6.9 Mg ha −1 yr −1 , with a mean AGB gain of 143 and 273 Mg ha −1 after 20 and 40 years, respectively. This rate estimate is about 50 % larger than the rate prescribed for young secondary Asian tropical rainforests in the 2019 refinement of the 2006 IPCC guidelines for national greenhouse gas inventories. Our study hence suggests that the new IPCC rates, which were based on limited data from Asian tropical rainforests, strongly underestimate the carbon potential of forest regrowth in tropical Asia. Our recovery estimates are also within the range of those reported for the well-studied Latin American secondary forests under similar climatic conditions. This study illustrates the potential of ALS data not only for scaling up field AGB measurements but also for predicting AGB recovery dynamics when combined with long-term satellite data. It also illustrates that tropical forest landscapes that were disturbed in the past are of utmost importance for the regional carbon budget and thus for implementing international programs such as REDD+.Published by Copernicus Publications on behalf of the European Geosciences Union.

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“…Pan‐tropical allometries have therefore been refined to incorporate variation attributed to region (Feldpausch et al., ) or climate (Chave et al., ). Nevertheless, height–diameter relationships can be expected to vary at all scales, suggesting that even these regionally or climatically modified models themselves lack the necessary sophistication needed for many applications (Rutishauser et al., ; Stas, Rutishauser, Chave, Anten, & Laumonier, ). It is of course also possible to construct locally derived height–diameter allometries that implicitly incorporate variation due to geography and the environment.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Field methods for sampling tree height for tropical forest biomass estimation

et al. 2018

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Quantifying the relationship between tree diameter and height is a key component of efforts to estimate biomass and carbon stocks in tropical forests. Although substantial site‐to‐site variation in height–diameter allometries has been documented, the time consuming nature of measuring all tree heights in an inventory plot means that most studies do not include height, or else use generic pan‐tropical or regional allometric equations to estimate height.Using a pan‐tropical dataset of 73 plots where at least 150 trees had in‐field ground‐based height measurements, we examined how the number of trees sampled affects the performance of locally derived height–diameter allometries, and evaluated the performance of different methods for sampling trees for height measurement.Using cross‐validation, we found that allometries constructed with just 20 locally measured values could often predict tree height with lower error than regional or climate‐based allometries (mean reduction in prediction error = 0.46 m). The predictive performance of locally derived allometries improved with sample size, but with diminishing returns in performance gains when more than 40 trees were sampled. Estimates of stand‐level biomass produced using local allometries to estimate tree height show no over‐ or under‐estimation bias when compared with biomass estimates using field measured heights. We evaluated five strategies to sample trees for height measurement, and found that sampling strategies that included measuring the heights of the ten largest diameter trees in a plot outperformed (in terms of resulting in local height–diameter models with low height prediction error) entirely random or diameter size‐class stratified approaches.Our results indicate that even limited sampling of heights can be used to refine height–diameter allometries. We recommend aiming for a conservative threshold of sampling 50 trees per location for height measurement, and including the ten trees with the largest diameter in this sample.

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Estimating the aboveground biomass in an old secondary forest on limestone in the Moluccas, Indonesia: Comparing locally developed versus existing allometric models

Cited by 45 publications

References 39 publications

Mixed-species allometric equations and estimation of aboveground biomass and carbon stocks in restoring degraded landscape in northern Ethiopia

Mixed-species allometric equations and estimation of aboveground biomass and carbon stocks in restoring degraded landscape in northern Ethiopia

Forest aboveground biomass stock and resilience in a tropical landscape of Thailand

Field methods for sampling tree height for tropical forest biomass estimation

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