Developing stem taper of Shorea robusta in the far-western Terai of Nepal

Abstract

 Tree taper functions expressed in terms of height and diameter at breast height (BDH) can provide accurate and timely information on current growing stock. Taper equations are very important for calculation of growing stock in forest inventories, however, in the context of Nepal, these are still unavailable at the required level. The study aimed to develop taper equations, so that those can be used to predict the diameter anywhere along the stem, and estimate tree volumes at desired sections. The input data was a destructive sampling method of 81 sample trees of Shorea robusta distributed in ten locations of the far western Terai of Nepal (Kailali and Kanchanpur districts).
 Using two independent B-Spline and 5th-degree polynomial taper models, the upper stem diameters were imputed. Both models were applied on the whole dataset, irrespective of DBH size, to get  common fitted taper models. Later, the same models were tested for three different DBH classes to compare and evaluate the best-fit model.  
 Taper models, developed under the B-spline polynomial model of 3rd degree, were found to be highly dependent on the tree (DBH) sizes. Thus, better models could be developed by classifying the whole dataset based on different DBH classes. On the other hand, developed models under the 5th degree polynomial taper model did not exhibit their dependency on the tree (DBH) sizes and a better model was found for the unclassified datasets, i.e. for all DBH sizes.