Comparison of Centroid and Paracone Estimates of Tree Volume

1991

S. 714-717

2 Tab., 9 Lit. Ang.

Unselbständiges Werk

200089372

Canadian Journal of Forest Research 1991 ; 21(5), S. 714-717

The use of the centroid and paracone methods for deriving the volume of 957 sample trees from four data sets was compared. The four data sets were as follows: Australian radiata pine (Pinus radiata D. Don) (114 trees); six species of Australian commercial hardwoods (140 trees); and two sets of Appalachian hardwoods, one comprising four species (538 trees) and the other 13 species (165 trees). Comparable accuracies of prediction were achieved with both methods, although the paracone method was slightly better for all data sets except radiata pine when predicting total volume. The similarity in the predictions was shown to be a direct result of the similarity in the total volume equations of the two methods. The centroid method consistently predicted merchantable volumes better than the paracone method, which had a tendency to give poorer estimates for smaller stems as the merchantable height decreased.