Biomass of California Oak Species

-Science Symposium Big Picture Award-

Climate change negatively impacts California natural lands. As a result, land managers are being encouraged to improve forest health via reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. To do so, foresters must first quantify a tree’s aboveground biomass (AGB) using allometric equations. However, these equations are limited for oak species and new data are difficult to collect. As such, the objective of this research is to use terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) to estimate AGB of local oak species. We hypothesize that TLS will improve the accuracy of AGB estimates compared to traditional field-based allometric biomass estimates. We collected TLS data by scanning 24 20x20 m plots in Pepperwood Preserve using a Riegl VZ-400i. Traditional tree data (height, diameter) were also measured for each tree in these plots. 3D point clouds of trees are being extracted from TLS scans and soon AGB will be calculated using quantitative structure models fit to the point clouds to compare these two approaches.