RT Journal Article
T1 Assessing site form as an indicator of site quality in even-aged Pinus radiata D. Don stands in north-western Spain
A1 Molina Valero, Juan Alberto
A1 Diéguez Aranda, Ulises
A1 Álvarez González, Juan Gabriel
A1 Castedo Dorado, Fernando
A1 Pérez Cruzado, César
K1 Site index
K1 Predicting
K1 Dominant diameter
K1 Dominant height
K1 Stand age
AB Key message:Site form and site index have shown similar precision for estimating site quality in even-aged Pinus radiata D. Don stands in north-western Spain. Additionally, SF presents the advantage that it does not require stand age information and can therefore be used in a wider set of situations in the forestry practice.Context:Estimation of site quality is essential for characterizing, monitoring and predicting forest resources. Site index (i.e. the dominant height of the stand at a reference age) is ordinarily used to estimate site quality; however, this index is only useful for even-aged stands of known age. By contrast, SF is age-independent as it uses the dominant height of the stand at a reference dominant diameter.Aims:The aim of this study was to compare the performance of SF and SI for site quality estimation in even-aged P. radiata stands.Methods:Dynamic equations derived with the Generalized Algebraic Difference Approach (GADA) from the Hossfeld IV base model were fitted to predict site quality with both SI and SF. SF predictions were compared with SI regarding variability within the same plot and consistency in site quality predictions, using the observed maximum mean annual volume increment (MAI) as a direct measure of site quality.Results:Both approaches showed good performance in model fitting and provided similar goodness-of-fit statistics and variability in the predictions. However, SI performed slightly stronger when related to MAI.Conclusion:SF performed adequately in estimating site quality for even-aged P. radiata stands, with results comparable to those obtained using traditional SI
PB Springer
SN 1286-4560
YR 2019
FD 2019
LK http://hdl.handle.net/10347/23416
UL http://hdl.handle.net/10347/23416
LA eng
NO Molina-Valero, J.A., Diéguez-Aranda, U., Álvarez-González, J.G. et al. Assessing site form as an indicator of site quality in even-aged Pinus radiata D. Don stands in north-western Spain. Annals of Forest Science 76, 113 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13595-019-0904-1
NO This study was funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities (AGL2016-76769-C2-2-R). JAMV was funded by Ministry of Education through the FPU program (FPU16/03057). CPC was funded by the Spanish Secretariat of State for Research, Development and Innovation through the JdC-I fellowship and by the European Commission thorough the MSCA-EF QUAFORD
DS Minerva
RD 28 abr 2026