Allometric Models for Estimation of Forest Biomass in North East India

In tropical and sub-tropical regions, biomass carbon (C) losses through forest degradation are recognized as central to global terrestrial carbon cycles. Accurate estimation of forest biomass C is needed to provide information on C fluxes and balances in such systems. The objective of this study was...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Forests 2019-01, Vol.10 (2), p.103
Main Authors: Nath, Arun, Tiwari, Brajesh, Sileshi, Gudeta, Sahoo, Uttam, Brahma, Biplab, Deb, Sourabh, Devi, Ningthoujam, Das, Ashesh, Reang, Demsai, Chaturvedi, Shiva, Tripathi, Om, Das, Dhruba, Gupta, Asha
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Accuracy
Biodegradation
Biodiversity
Biomass
Carbon
Carbon cycle
Climate change
Climate change mitigation
Coniferous forests
Ecosystem services
Ecosystems
Emissions
Estimates
Fluxes
Forest biomass
Forest degradation
Forests
Remote sensing
Terrestrial environments
Trees
Tropical environment
Tropical environments
Tropical forests
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Summary:In tropical and sub-tropical regions, biomass carbon (C) losses through forest degradation are recognized as central to global terrestrial carbon cycles. Accurate estimation of forest biomass C is needed to provide information on C fluxes and balances in such systems. The objective of this study was to develop generalized biomass models using harvest data covering tropical semi-evergreen, tropical wet evergreen, sub-tropical broad leaved, and sub-tropical pine forest in North East India (NEI). Among the four biomass estimation models (BEMs) tested AGBest = 0.32(D2Hδ)0.75 × 1.34 and AGBest = 0.18D2.16 × 1.32 were found to be the first and second best models for the different forest types in NEI. The study also revealed that four commonly used generic models developed by Chambers (2001), Brown (1989), Chave (2005) and Chave (2014) overestimated biomass stocks by 300–591 kg tree−1, while our highest rated model overestimated biomass by 197 kg tree−1. We believe the BEMs we developed will be useful for practitioners involved in remote sensing, biomass estimation and in projects on climate change mitigation, and payment for ecosystem services. We recommend future studies to address country scale estimation of forest biomass covering different forest types.
ISSN:1999-4907
1999-4907
DOI:10.3390/f10020103