The assessment of tree row attributes by stratified two-stage sampling |
| |
Authors: | Piermaria Corona Lorenzo Fattorini |
| |
Institution: | (1) Dipartimento di Scienze dell’Ambiente Forestale e delle sue Risorse, Università della Tuscia, via San Camillo de Lellis s.n.c, 01100 Viterbo, Italy;(2) Dipartimento di Metodi Quantitativi, Università di Siena, Siena, Italy |
| |
Abstract: | Tree row inventories are of increasing interest because tree rows mitigate wind erosion and desertification, protect agricultural
crops, enhance rural landscape quality, act as bio-corridors, carbon sinks, and a source for bio-energy. The main objective
of tree row inventories is to estimate population parameters such as total tree numbers, total tree numbers by species, the
mean stem diameter at breast height, the mean tree height and total wood volume. The estimation of these quantities may be
straightforwardly carried out whenever aerial images are available in such a way that tree rows can be counted: in these cases,
a two-stage cluster sampling may be performed in which the primary units sampled in the first stage are the tree rows in the
study area while the secondary units sampled in the second stage are the trees within the selected rows. This paper proposes
two sets of two-stage estimators for the interest parameters, based on the Horvitz–Thompson and ratio criteria, together with
the corresponding estimators for their sampling variances. The use of stratification is also considered. The proposed procedure
was applied to perform a tree row inventory in the Pontina plain (Central Italy): in this case, the tree rows were enumerated
by means of ortho-corrected airborne images and stratification was carried out on the basis of the prevailing species and
age classes. The inventory results are interesting from a forestry perspective as well as for checking the effectiveness of
the procedure. |
| |
Keywords: | Linear tree systems Windbreaks Multiresource forest inventories Two-stage sampling Horvitz– Thompson estimators Ratio estimators Italy |
本文献已被 SpringerLink 等数据库收录! |
|