Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://hdl.handle.net/10397/70908
PIRA download icon_1.1View/Download Full Text
Title: Predictions of tropical forest biomass and biomass growth based on stand height or canopy area are improved by landsat-scale phenology across Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands
Authors: Gwenzi, D
Helmer, EH
Zhu, XL 
Lefsky, MA
Marcano-Vega, H
Issue Date: 2017
Source: Remote sensing, Feb. 2017, v. 9, no. 2, 123
Abstract: Remotely-sensed estimates of forest biomass are usually based on various measurements of canopy height, area, volume or texture, as derived from LiDAR, radar or fine spatial resolution imagery. These measurements are then calibrated to estimates of stand biomass that are primarily based on tree stem diameters. Although humid tropical forest seasonality can have low amplitudes compared with temperate regions, seasonal variations in growth-related factors like temperature, humidity, rainfall, wind speed and day length affect both tropical forest deciduousness and tree height-diameter relationships. Consequently, seasonal patterns in spectral measures of canopy greenness derived from satellite imagery should be related to tree height-diameter relationships and hence to estimates of forest biomass or biomass growth that are based on stand height or canopy area. In this study, we tested whether satellite image-based measures of tropical forest phenology, as estimated by indices of seasonal patterns in canopy greenness constructed from Landsat satellite images, can explain the variability in forest deciduousness, forest biomass and net biomass growth after already accounting for stand height or canopy area. Models of forest biomass that added phenology variables to structural variables similar to those that can be estimated by LiDAR or very high-spatial resolution imagery, like canopy height and crown area, explained up to 12% more variation in biomass. Adding phenology to structural variables explained up to 25% more variation in Net Biomass Growth (NBG). In all of the models, phenology contributed more as interaction terms than as single-effect terms. In addition, models run on only fully-forested plots performed better than models that included partially-forested plots. For forest NBG, the models produced better results when only those plots with a positive growth, from Inventory Cycle 1 to Inventory Cycle 2, were analyzed, as compared to models that included all plots.
Keywords: Landsat
Phenology
Forest deciduousness
Forest biomass
Forest biomass growth
Forest carbon stocks
Publisher: Molecular Diversity Preservation International (MDPI)
Journal: Remote sensing 
ISSN: 2072-4292
DOI: 10.3390/rs9020123
Rights: © 2017 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
The following publication Gwenzi, D.; Helmer, E.H.; Zhu, X.; Lefsky, M.A.; Marcano-Vega, H. Predictions of Tropical Forest Biomass and Biomass Growth Based on Stand Height or Canopy Area Are Improved by Landsat-Scale Phenology across Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Remote Sens. 2017, 9, 123, 1-18 is available at https://dx.doi.org/10.3390/rs9020123
Appears in Collections:Journal/Magazine Article

Files in This Item:
File Description SizeFormat 
Gwenzi_Tropical_Forest_Biomass.pdf8.19 MBAdobe PDFView/Open
Open Access Information
Status open access
File Version Version of Record
Access
View full-text via PolyU eLinks SFX Query
Show full item record

Page views

109
Last Week
2
Last month
Citations as of Mar 24, 2024

Downloads

74
Citations as of Mar 24, 2024

SCOPUSTM   
Citations

16
Last Week
0
Last month
Citations as of Mar 28, 2024

WEB OF SCIENCETM
Citations

15
Last Week
0
Last month
Citations as of Mar 28, 2024

Google ScholarTM

Check

Altmetric


Items in DSpace are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.