Forest Mensuration

About this book

Van Laar and Akca's popular text book, Forest Mensuration, was first published in 1997. Like that first edition, this modern update is based on extensive research, teaching and practical experience in both Europe, and the tropics and subtropics. However, it has also been extensively revised, and now includes chapters on remote sensing and the application of aerial photographs and satellite imagery.

As with its predecessor, this book assumes no advanced knowledge of statistical methods, and combines practical techniques with important historical and disciplinary context. The result is a strong balance between a handbook on traditional mensuration methods, and a valuable reference on the many recent research and inventory-related innovations which have emerged in recent years.

Written in a highly accessible style, the book is aimed primarily at undergraduate students and forest practitioners - and now includes a wide range of worked examples which will provide guidance for readers wishing to process their own data. However, with its wide scope, and including many new instruments for forest measurement, the book will also act as an extremely useful reference material for postgraduate students and forest scientists.

Contents

Preface. 1. Introduction. 2. Statistical Prerequisites. 2.1 Introduction. 2.2 Scales and units of measurement. 2.3 Graphical presentation of data. 2.4 Descriptive statistics. 2.5 Probability distributions. 2.6 Estimation. 2.7 Regression and correlation analysis. 2.8 Moving average. 2.9 Smoothening by fitting equations. 2.10 Freehand fitting. 3. Instruments. 3.1 Diameter measuring instruments. 3.2 Relascopes and prisms. 3.3 Tree height. 3.4 Blume-Leiss range-traces drum. 3.5 Tree crown and foliage. 3.6 Short-term radial growth responses. 3.7 Increment cores. 3.8 Bark thickness. 3.9 Recent developments in instrumentation. 4. Single Tree Measurements. 4.1 Measurements on standing trees. 4.2 Volume, log classes and weight of felled trees. 5. Measurement of Stands. 5.1 Introduction. 5.2 Age. 5.3 Mean diameter. 5.4 Diameter distributions. 5.5 Stand tables. 5.6 Stand height. 5.7 Stand volume. 5.8 Spatial distribution of trees. 5.9 Stand density. 6. Taper Tables and Functions. 6.1 Taper tables. 6.2 Stem profile models. 7. Tree Volume Tables and Equations. 7.1 Introduction. 7.2 Volume equations with one predictor variable. 7.3 Equations with two predictor variables. 7.4 Equations with more than two predictor variables. 7.5 Merchantable volume. 8. Tree and Stand Biomass. 8.1 Introduction. 8.2 Biomass components. 8.3 Tree level regression models. 8.4 Additivity of biomass components. 8.5 Dummy-variables for tree species. 8.6 Ratio estimators and cluster sampling. 9. Growth and Yield. 9.1 Definitions. 9.2 The growth of single trees. 9.3 Site class and site index. 9.4 The growth of stands. 10. Sampling for Forest Inventories. 10.1 Introduction. 10.2 Plot sampling. 10.3 Point sampling. 10.4 Simple random sampling. 10.5 Error propagation. 10.6 Stratified random sampling. 10.7 Regression and ratio estimators. 10.8 Double sampling (Two-phase sampling). 10.9 Cluster sampling. 10.10 Multistage sampling. 10.11 Strip sampling. 10.12 Sampling with unequal selection probabilities. 10.13 Systematic sampling. 10.14 Sampling proportions. 10.15 Estimating changes. 10.16 Line intersect sampling. 11. Remote Sensing in Forest Mensuration. 11.1 Introduction. 11.2 Fundamentals of aerial photography. 11.3 Dendrometric data. 11.4 Estimation of stand volume. 11.5 The estimation of volume increment. Appendix. A. Symbols, Greek letter. B. Diameter data of sampling trees. C. Sample tree data for fitting stand height curves. D. Conversion factors for linear, square, cubic and weight measures. Bibliography. Index.

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Biography

ANTHONIE VAN LAAR was born in the Netherlands in 1923 and studied forest science at the University and Research Centre Wageningen between 1941 and 1949. In 1958 he emigrated to South Africa and obtained the D.Sc.degree in Forest Science at the University of Stellenbosch (1961) and thereafter Dr.oec.pub (1973) and Dr.hab. (1979) at the University of Munich. The theses dealt with forest biometry and growth modeling. Since his retirement in 1988 the author continued his involvement in these subjects, more particularly in growth models for Eucalyptus grandis. ALPARSLAN AKCA (born 1936) studied forestry at the University of Istanbul an Freiburg i. Br. He received his doctorate in Forestry at the University of Freiburg on identification of land use classes and forest types by means of microdensitometer and discriminant analyses in 1970 and his habilitations in photogrammetry and geodesy at the University of Istanbul in 1976 and in forest inventory and forest management at the University of Gottingen in 1981. He is Professor for Forest Management, Forest Inventory and Remote sensing at the University of Gottingen and retired 2001. His main research interest are forest mensuration. Forest inventory and remote sensing in forestry.