Chapters authored
Methods of Estimating Forest Biomass: A Review
Forest plays a special role in carbon sequestration and thus mitigating climate change. However, the large uncertainty in biomass estimation is unable to meet the requirement of the accurate carbon accounting. The use of a suitable and rigor method to accurately estimate forest biomass is significant. Moreover, the world is increasingly facing the conflicting pressures of economic growth and environmental protection. Improving energy structure and vigorously developing biomass energy has become the development trend of energy utilization in the future. As energy plant is characterized by a large net accumulation of biomass. Therefore, the scientific evaluation of the size and potential of energy from plant also requires a suitable method for estimating biomass. Here, we reviewed the estimate methods, including allometric equation, mean biomass density, biomass expansion factor, geostatistics, etc. For each method, we will present background, rational, applicability, as well as estimation procedure by exemplifying a case. In this chapter, we argued that the new developed technique such as geo-statistics and remote sensing technique (e.g. LIDAR) would be the key tools to improve forest biomass estimation accuracy. However, prior to this, spatial variation of forest biomass at various levels should be explored using multi-source data and multi-approaches.
Part of the book: Biomass Volume Estimation and Valorization for Energy