Allometric equations for estimating biomass of community forest tree species in madiun, Indonesia

The capability of community forests for offsetting carbon emissions highly depends on their biomass production. Unfortunately, the measurement of tree biomass in community forests using a destructive method is expensive and time-consuming. It is also almost impossible to conduct this method for all trees in the observation area. Therefore, the development of allometric equations is essential to support tree biomass estimation in community forests. This study was designed to construct specific models for predicting individual tree biomass in community forests, located in Madiun, Indonesia. We destructively sampled approximately 120 trees from four different species (30 trees for each species), i.e., Falcataria moluccana, Melia azedarach, Swietenia macrophylla, and Tectona grandis. For every tree sample, the measurement of biomass was conducted in each tree’s component, namely roots, stem, branches, and leaves. The allometric equations were developed with regression analysis using predictor variables, like diameter at breast height (D), squared diameter at breast height combined with tree height (D2H), as well as D and H separately. Results found that for four species, the mean biomass in the stem was 50.3%, followed by branches 25.4%, roots 15.9%, and leaves 8.3%. The best equation for estimating biomass in every component and total of four species was different. However, our study showed that the equation lnŶ =-3.037 + 1.430 lnD + 1.684 was reliable to estimate total individual tree biomass of four species in the surveyed area since this model had accuracy of 90.8%. Referring to these findings, we recommended the utilization of an allometric equation as an alternative method for facilitating more efficient biomass measurement in the community forests. © 2020, Society for Indonesian Biodiversity. All rights reserved.