Models for estimating biomass of forest-forming species by crown diameter as related to drone involving

Abstract

Due to climate change and the potential possibility of its stabilization with the help of managed forests and assessment of their carbon depositing capacity, the possibility of operational assessment of biomass and organic carbon of forest cover becomes particularly relevant. In recent years, remote sensing technologies of forests based on unmanned aerial vehicles (drones) have made it possible to obtain the values of the parameters of tree crowns from as close distance as possible. That provides not only high accuracy and speed of measurements, but also the ability to distinguish trees by species composition. In this study, an attempt is made to develop allometric models designed to estimate the biomass of trees of forest-forming genera in Russia by crown diameter. To achieve the research goal, an author's database of 15200 definitions of tree biomass was used. A number of 1665 model trees of five coniferous and 780 model trees of six deciduous species were selected from it. Since the actual values of the biomass of trees are presented in the database by several vicarious species within the genus, the analysis of the dependence of the biomass of a tree on its crown diameter is performed at the level of genera and subgenera. A package of allometric models of the biomass of trees of full component composition for each genera and subgenera is calculated, all regression coefficients of which are significant at the level of p < 0,001. The proposed allometric models can be used to estimate the biomass and organic carbon of trees and stands of forest-forming genera in Russia based on digital photogrammetry of visual data obtained using drones.