RT Journal Article
T1 The Horizontal Distribution of Branch Biomass in European Beech: A Model Based on Measurements and TLS Based Proxies
A1 Pérez Cruzado, César
A1 Kleinn, Christoph
A1 Magdon, Paul
A1 Álvarez González, Juan Gabriel
A1 Magnussen, Steen
A1 Fehrmann, Lutz
A1 Nölke, Nils
K1 Terrestrial laser scanning (TLS)
K1 Sampling
K1 Forest inventory
K1 Forest monitoring
K1 Biomass models
AB Forest biomass is currently among the most important and most researched target variables in forest monitoring. The common approach of observing individual tree biomass in forest inventory is to assign the total tree biomass to the dimensionless point of the tree position. However, the tree biomass, in particular in the crown, is horizontally distributed above the crown projection area. This horizontal distribution of individual tree biomass (HBD) has not attracted much attention—but if quantified, it can improve biomass estimation and help to better represent the spatial distribution of forest fuel. In this study, we derive a first empirical model of the branch HBD for individual trees of European beech (Fagus sylvatica L.). We destructively measured 23 beech trees to derive an empirical model for the branch HBD. We then applied Terrestrial Laser Scanning (TLS) to a subset of 17 trees to test a simple point cloud metric predicting the branch HBD. We observed similarities between a branch HBD and commonly applied taper functions, which inspired our HBD model formulations. The models performed well in representing the HBD both for the measured biomass, and the TLS-based metric. Our models may be used as first approximations to the HBD of individual trees—while our methodological approach may extend to trees of different sizes and species
PB MDPI
YR 2021
FD 2021
LK http://hdl.handle.net/10347/24706
UL http://hdl.handle.net/10347/24706
LA eng
NO Remote Sens. 2021, 13(5), 1041; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs13051041
NO This research was funded by the Forest Research Institute of the German Federal State of Rheinland-Pfalz (FAWF) in Trippstadt. We also thank the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Action fellow QUAFORD and the Ramón y Cajal Tenure Track awarded to C.P.-C
DS Minerva
RD 24 abr 2026