Development of allometric equations for estimating Pinus Brutia and Pinus Nigra trees biomass using regional field measurements and high-resolution crown area and height imagery

Abstract

Mediterranean ecosystems have been overlooked for climate mitigation due to their relatively low biomass and carbon stocks, although trees in these regions offer important ecosystem services. Under a fast-changing climate, trees in the Mediterranean are particularly vulnerable to droughts and fires. However, the impacts of these extreme events remain difficult to quantify and monitor on a regular basis both because of the lack of systematic and accurate forest inventories and because many trees growing outside forests are not accounted for. In this study, conducted over Cyprus, an extended dataset of field height and diameter measurements and very high-resolution remote sensing photogrammetric and LiDAR images segmented for crown area and height are combined to quantify individual tree characteristics. These variables are then processed to quantify biomass for each individual tree by deriving locally calibrated allometric equations. Local allometric equations for dominant conifer tree species (Pinus Brutia and Pinus Nigra) are calibrated based on a large collection of tree morphology data. These equations are compared against previously reported allometric models used for the same species in other Eastern Mediterranean regions. Our allometric models achieved an accuracy of up to 98%, paving the way for a tree-level biomass and carbon inventory at the scale of the entire country of Cyprus based on wall-to-wall crown area images.

Plant phenotyping relevance

個体樹木の形態を高解像度画像から抽出し、局所校正したアロメトリ式でバイオマスを推定する手法の開発・比較・検証が中心であり、植物個体の明示的形質測定に該当する。

Code and data availability

The supplied blocks describe field measurements from the Cyprus Department of Forests, aerial/LiDAR imagery, and CNN-derived crown delineations, but contain no data availability statement, no public repository deposit, and no author code/model URL. The only URLs are the article's own DOI/HAL page, license, ORCIDs, and

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