Methods of Estimating Forest Biomass

Abstract

The estimation of the weight of vegetation in the forest is a time consuming operation. Most often this work is completed in remote locations so that efficient methods need to be employed. Two distinctly separate situations can be considered. On the one hand there is the typical research situation in which samples of trees and subordinate vegetation can be weighed in the field. Alternatively, one may wish to estimate the weight of a stand using prediction equations based on sampling over a wide geographical area. Some problems are common to both situations while each approach has problems of its own. In either case it is customary to report results as tonnes per hectare. Some authors prefer grammes per centimeter square but these units are hardly conducive to a mental picture of the forest which often consists of a relatively few, large, widely spaced individual trees.