Abstract:
Species-Specific Allometric Equation Development for Biomass Estimation of Two Selected Indigenous Trees Species in Hulet Wogedamie Forest, Dera District, Amhara Region, Ethiopia
The development of tree allometric equations is fundamental for precise forest biomass and carbon assessment. However, very few allometric equations have been developed in Ethiopia for forests and have no species-specific allometric equations for accurate above-ground biomass estimation and quantifying carbon stock. Therefore, this study aimed to develop species-specific allometric equations of Millettia ferruginea and Syzygium guineense species with the semi-destructive method. A preferential sampling method was used and data was taken from 12 individuals of each species with different diametre at breast height (DBH). A set of species-specific models relating above-ground biomass to variables such as diameter at breast height, wood specific gravity and tree height were fitted to the data by linear regression analysis using R-statistical software. This particular study analyzed the branches from the trimmed section to obtain a local mean wood density for the two study species (0.575 g/cm3 Millettia ferruginea and 0.46 g/cm3 for Syzygium guineense). The trimmed biomass, untrimmed dry branches and dry section biomass of each plant were calculated and the Above-ground Biomass (AGB) of each plant was estimated by summing up the tree compartment biomasses of the plant. The total dry above-ground biomass of the sampled trees in the study site was 2081.5 kg and 6770.7 kg for Millettia ferruginea and Syzygium guineense species respectively. The developed allometric model that appropriate for the linear models has a significant p-value (P<0.000) for both selected species. The best models were selected for each tree species based on the criteria that have high adjusted R2 and low Akaike Information Criterion (AIC) and low residual standard errors (RSE) values. Based on these criteria, the best fit model for Millettia ferruginea was AGB=-247.740+36.893(Height) and for Syzygium guineense species, AGB=-294.343+26.091(DBH) comparing the rest of the model. Comparison of our results with those obtained using a generalized pan-tropical model revealed differences in biomass estimations. Therefore, formulating species-specific allometric equations are found important for accurate tree biomass estimation and quantifying the carbon stock