The issue of global climate change and an increasing interest in the reduction of fossil fuel carbon dioxide emissions by using forest biomass for energy production has increased the importance of quantifying forest biomass in recent years. The official U.S. forest carbon reporting is based on the forest biomass estimates...
Biomass estimates are required for reporting carbon, assessing feedstock availability, and assessing forest fire threat. We developed diameter- and height-based biomass equations for Western hemlock (Tsuga heterophylla (Raf.) Sarg.) and red alder (Alnus rubra Bong.) trees in Western Oregon. A system of component biomass equations was fitted simultaneously with a...
Accurate biomass measurements and analyses are critical components in quantifying carbon stocks and sequestration rates, assessing potential impacts due to climate change, locating bio-energy processing plants, and mapping and planning fuel treatments. To this end, biomass equations will remain a key component of future carbon measurements and estimation. As researchers...
The growing need for accurate forest biomass and carbon estimates has sparked a recent re-examination of direct volume estimation and taper modeling techniques. Additionally, the need for increased precision of biomass and carbon estimates drives a need to improve the techniques used to evaluate these models. Taper equations have an...
Quantifying biomass is important for sustainable forest management. The purpose of this study is to obtain allometric relationships for seven species of shrubs common in northeastern California so that estimates of carbon and fuel loading may be better realized. Although some shrub biomass equations exist, such equations are limited in...
The relationship between livelihoods and forest use is one of the main challenges facing wildlife and habitat conservation in developing countries. Poor residents in forest-adjacent areas are typically perceived to be the main forest users, with use often deemed illegal. However, there is still a limited understanding of livelihood constraints...
Coniferous trees are a major North American crop that has been intensively managed for its commercial value, while also serving as critical habitat for abundant wildlife and as carbon sinks. Having diverse functions, North American temperate coniferous forests have become a research hotspot for numerous scientific studies aiming to integrate...
Accurate estimates of height-to-crown-base (HTCB) are essential for the reliable projections of stand structure over time required for sustainable forest management. Yet, HTCB often measured alongside total height (HT) for only for a subsample of trees in traditional stand-based inventories and must be imputed for all others. We compared the...
Broad-scale estimates of above ground forest biomass (AGB) are typically produced by applying individual-tree equations to inventory data consisting of measurements from probabilistically or purposively selected trees. The associated uncertainty for these estimates depends primarily on three sources of error that interact and propagate: (1) measurement error, the quality of...
Quantitative assessments of post-fire effects are key to improving our understanding of ecosystem resilience. While remote sensing technology has allowed us to assess post-fire landscape effects, we are often limited by the lack of information related to pre-fire forest attributes. As a result, our ability to interpret fire effects in...