Tree And Stand Biomass

Until recently, forest mensuration has emphasized the estimation of the total and utilizable volume rather than weight, partly because timber is usually sold on a volume basis and partly because the volume of standing trees can be estimated more easily than their weight. In many countries and regions there is an increasing need to express the productivity of forests in terms of weight, more particularly in those plantation forests which are managed for the production of pulpwood and mining timber or when by-products, for example bark for the production of tannins, are involved. A similar situation arises when trees are planted or natural forests are managed to produce wood for energy, since mass rather than volume is a yardstick to quantify the production of wood for energy. Other reasons for the increased interest in forest biomass, initiated in the early 1960s, was the necessity to measure biological productivity in terms of dry weight of the organic matter, and the oil crisis, which induced a greater emphasis on the utilization of wood as a renewable natural resource.