A critique of general allometry-inspired models for estimating forest carbon density from airborne LiDAR.

ABSTRACT: There is currently much interest in developing general approaches for mapping forest aboveground carbon density using structural information contained in airborne LiDAR data. The most widely utilized model in tropical forests assumes that aboveground carbon density is a compound power function of top of canopy height (a metric easily derived from LiDAR), basal area and wood density. Here we derive the model in terms of the geometry of individual tree crowns within forest stands, showing how scaling exponents in the aboveground carbon density model arise from the height-diameter (H-D) and projected crown area-diameter (C-D) allometries of individual trees. We show that a power function relationship emerges when the C-D scaling exponent is close to 2, or when tree diameters follow a Weibull

SUBMITTER: Spriggs RA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6474603 | biostudies-literature | 2019

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature