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Uncertainty estimation of biomass expansion factors for Norway spruce in the Czech Republic

Incertitudes pour l’estimation des facteurs d’expansion de la biomasse chez l’épicéa en République tchèque

Annals of Forest Science volume 64, pages 133–140 (2007)Cite this article

Abstract

Nation wide estimates of the changes in forest biomass are needed for the greenhouse gas (GHG) reporting under the Climate Convention. The bases for national GHG reporting concerning forest sector are the national forest inventory (NFI) programmes. Since these programmes were mostly established for monitoring of timber resources, one of the current challenges for the NFIs is the development of methodology, such as biomass expansion factors (BEFs). The methodology for carbon stock change estimation should be transparent and verifiable, but this demand is not currently met due to the fact that the source data and uncertainty in the applied BEFs are not known. Here we developed BEFs with uncertainty estimation applicable to stand wise inventory of Norway spruce forests in the Czech Republic. BEFs were constructed, based on tree wise data from permanent research plots, by applying biomass and volume models to tree-level data. These BEFs were age-dependent and their uncertainty was sensitive to the dependencies among errors. Most of the uncertainty in the BEFs was due to uncertainty in the biomass and volume models applied.

Résumé

Les estimations de la biomasse des forêts servent à évaluer les effets des changements climatiques et à dresser des rapports internationaux. En foresterie, les rapports nationaux sur les gaz à effet de serre (GES) sont basés sur l’inventaire forestier national. L’objectif premier de cet inventaire étant la prévision des ressources de bois brut, l’inventaire des GES appelle des méthodes de prévision basée sur les facteurs d’expansion de la biomasse. Les méthodes d’estimation des GES devraient être transparentes et vérifiables — objectif souvent non atteint parce que l’origine et l’incertitude des facteurs d’expansion de la biomasse ne sont pas connues. Dans cette étude nous avons développé des facteurs d’expansion de la biomasse des forêts de sapin dans la République tchèque et calculé l’incertitude de ceux-ci. Les facteurs ont été estimés en fonction des mesures au niveau de l’arbre dans des zones d’échantillonnage permanentes et de l’application des modèles de volume et de biomasse. Ces facteurs d’expansion étaient dépendants de l’âge et leur incertitude sensible aux corrélations entre les erreurs. L’incertitude des facteurs d’expansion était principalement due aux modèles de biomasse et de volume appliqués.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Finnish Forest Research Institute, P.O. Box 18, 01301, Vantaa, Finland

    Aleksi Lehtonen & Raisa Mäkipää

  2. Institute of Forest Ecosystem Research (IFER), 254 01 Jílové u Prahy, 1544, Czech Republic

    Emil Cienciala & Fedor Tatarinov

Authors
  1. Aleksi Lehtonen
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  2. Emil Cienciala
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  3. Fedor Tatarinov
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  4. Raisa Mäkipää
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Correspondence to Aleksi Lehtonen.

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Lehtonen, A., Cienciala, E., Tatarinov, F. et al. Uncertainty estimation of biomass expansion factors for Norway spruce in the Czech Republic. Ann. For. Sci. 64, 133–140 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1051/forest:2006097

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1051/forest:2006097

Annals of Forest Science

ISSN: 1297-966X