Hierarchical models for informing general biomass equations with felled tree data

Brian J. Clough; Matthew B. Russell; Christopher W. W. Woodall; Grant M. Domke; Philip J. Radtke

Treesearch

Hierarchical models for informing general biomass equations with felled tree data

Informally Refereed

Authors:

Brian J. Clough, Matthew B. Russell, Christopher W. W. Woodall, Grant M. Domke, Philip J. Radtke

Year:

2015

Type:

General Technical Report

Station:

Northern Research Station

Source:

In: Stanton, Sharon M.; Christensen, Glenn A., comps. 2015. Pushing boundaries: new directions in inventory techniques and applications: Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) symposium 2015. 2015 December 8–10; Portland, Oregon. Gen. Tech. Rep. PNW-GTR-931. Portland, OR: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station: 114-118.

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Abstract

We present a hierarchical framework that uses a large multispecies felled tree database to inform a set of general models for predicting tree foliage biomass, with accompanying uncertainty, within the FIA database. Results suggest significant prediction uncertainty for individual trees and reveal higher errors when predicting foliage biomass for larger trees and for conifers. Consequently, we found large uncertainties when applying the fitted models to predict plot-scale foliage biomass for FIA data within Minnesota. These results suggest that applying general equations with fixed parameters may ignore significant error when used to estimate foliage biomass within the FIA database.

Parent Publication

Pushing boundaries: new directions in inventory techniques and applications: Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) symposium 2015

Citation

Clough, Brian J.; Russell, Matthew B.; Woodall, Christopher W.; Domke, Grant M.; Radtke, Philip J. 2015. Hierarchical models for informing general biomass equations with felled tree data. In: Stanton, Sharon M.; Christensen, Glenn A., comps. 2015. Pushing boundaries: new directions in inventory techniques and applications: Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) symposium 2015. 2015 December 8–10; Portland, Oregon. Gen. Tech. Rep. PNW-GTR-931. Portland, OR: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station: 114-118.