Aboveground Biomass Models in the Combretum-Terminalia Woodlands of Ethiopia: Testing Species and Site Variation Effects

Abstract

The Combretum-Terminalia woodlands and wooded grasslands (CTW) are widely distributed in East Africa. While these landscapes may have the potential to act as key global carbon sinks, relatively little is known about their carbon storage capacity. Here we developed a set of novel aboveground biomass (AGB) models and tested for species and site variation effects to quantify the potential for CTW to store carbon. In total, 321 trees were sampled from 13 dominant tree species, across three sites in the Northwest lowlands of Ethiopia. Overall, fitted species-specific models performed the best, with diameter at breast height explaining 94–99% of the AGB variations. Interspecific tree allometry differences among species were more substantial than intraspecific tree allometry among sites. Incorporating wood density and height in the mixed-species models significantly improved the model performance relative mean absolute error (MAPE) of 2.4–8.0%, while site variation did not affect the model accuracy substantially. Large errors (MAPE%) were observed when using existing pantropical models, indicating that model selection remains an important source of uncertainty. Although the estimates of selected site-specific models were accurate for local sites, mixed-species and species-specific models performed better when validation data collated from different sites were incorporated together. We concluded that including site- and species-level data improved model estimates of AGB for the CTW of Ethiopia.