Aboveground biomass and carbon stocks modelling using non-linear regression model

Abstract

Aboveground biomass (AGB) is an important source of uncertainty in the carbon estimation for the tropical forest due to the variation biodiversity of species and the complex structure of tropical rain forest. Nevertheless, the tropical rainforest holds the most extensive forest in the world with the vast diversity of tree with layered canopies. With the usage of optical sensor integrate with empirical models is a common way to assess the AGB. Using the regression, the linkage between remote sensing and a biophysical parameter of the forest may be made. Therefore, this paper exemplifies the accuracy of non-linear regression equation of quadratic function to estimate the AGB and carbon stocks for the tropical lowland Dipterocarp forest of Ayer Hitam forest reserve, Selangor. The main aim of this investigation is to obtain the relationship between biophysical parameter field plots with the remotely-sensed data using nonlinear regression model. The result showed that there is a good relationship between crown projection area (CPA) and carbon stocks (CS) with Pearson Correlation (p < 0.01), the coefficient of correlation (r) is 0.671. The study concluded that the integration of Worldview-3 imagery with the canopy height model (CHM) raster based LiDAR were useful in order to quantify the AGB and carbon stocks for a larger sample area of the lowland Dipterocarp forest.