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METADATA

Biomass Plot Library - National collation of stem inventory data and biomass estimation, Australian field sites

Status of Data: completed
Update Frequency: not planned
Ver: 1.0
Security Classification: unclassified
Viewed: 0
Accessed: 0

Description

The Biomass Plot Library is a collation of stem inventory data across federal, state and local government departments, universities, private companies and other agencies. It was motivated by the need for calibration/validation data to underpin national mapping of above-ground biomass from integration of Landsat time-series, ICESat/GLAS lidar, and ALOS PALSAR bacscatter data under the auspices of the JAXA Kyoto & Carbon (K&C) Initiative (Armston et al., 2016). At the time of Version 1.0 publication 1,073,837 hugs of 839,866 trees across 1,467 species had been collated. This has resulted from 16,391 visits to 12,663 sites across most of Australia's bioregions. Data provided for each project by the various source organisation were imported to a PostGIS database in their native form and then translated to a common set of tree, plot and site level observations with explicit plot footprints where available.

Data can be downloaded from https://field.jrsrp.com/ by selecting the combinations Tree biomass and Site Level, Tree Biomass and Tree Level.


Credit
We at TERN acknowledge the Traditional Owners and Custodians throughout Australia, New Zealand and all nations. We honour their profound connections to land, water, biodiversity and culture and pay our respects to their Elders past, present and emerging.

The following organisations contributed to the Biomass Plot Library: Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO); Flinders University, South Australia; Victorian Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning (DELWP); Queensland Herbarium, Department of Environment and Science (DES); Western Regeneration Pty. Ltd.; Department of the Environment, Australia; Charles Darwin University, Northern Territory; Darwin Centre for Bushfire Research; NSW Office of Environment and Heritage (OEH); TERN Ausplots; TERN Supersite Network; University of New South Wales; University of Queensland; Queensland Department of Agriculture and Fisheries (DAF); Forestry Tasmania; Queensland Remote Sensing Centre, DES; Department of Parks and Wildlife, Western Australia; New South Wales Forestry Corporation; Joint Remote Sensing Research Program.


Purpose
This is a national collation of tree and shrub inventory data, allometric model predictions of above and below-ground biomass for Australia, for the purpose of calibrating and validating satellite-derived products.

Lineage

Data Creation
Estimations: The above-ground, below-ground and total biomass (live+dead) estimation was implemented using the generic allometric models for Australian plant functional types developed by Paul et al. (2016) and decay correction factors implemented by Lucas et al. (2010). Site level estimates of biomass error were derived through comprehensive analysis of measurement and allometric model prediction errors (Paul et al., 2016), propagating the random error (precision) associated with the development of the allometric models, all the way through to the prediction of total site biomass.
Field Overview: Field Data Overview

Temporal coverage

From 11/26/1936 to 10/20/2015

Dates

Date modified

12/3/2021

Citation information

How to cite this collection:

Librarian, D. (2021): Biomass Plot Library - National collation of stem inventory data and biomass estimation, Australian field sites. Version 1.0. Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network. (Dataset). https://portal.tern.org.au/metadata/TERN/fc4a7249-ebb2-4ada-8e06-b552bfb297a3

Access data

This data can be accessed from the following websites
  • /attachment/fc4a7249-ebb2-4ada-8e06-b552bfb297a3/biomass_library_site_level_attributes.txt
  • /attachment/fc4a7249-ebb2-4ada-8e06-b552bfb297a3/biomass_library_tree_level_attributes.txt
  • /attachment/fc4a7249-ebb2-4ada-8e06-b552bfb297a3/biomass_plot_library_workflow.png
  • /attachment/fc4a7249-ebb2-4ada-8e06-b552bfb297a3/biomass_plot_measurements_spatial_database.png
  • Field Data Portal

Access metadata

Point-of-truth metadata URL

Rights and Licensing

CC-BY

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0

Copyright 2016 JRSRP. Rights owned by the Joint Remote Sensing Research Program.
These data can be freely downloaded and used subject to the CC BY 4.0 licence. Attribution and citation is required as described at http://www.auscover.org.au/citation. We ask that you send us citations and copies of publications arising from work that use these data.
The Biomass Plot Library data is not the result of a stratified random sampling design, therefore should not be used directly for estimation of regional carbon stocks. This is especially the case for some projects that are biased towards large trees (e.g. sites established by Forestry Tasmania).

Spatial coverage

Keywords

Parameters
  • scientific name (Unitless)
  • canopy height (Metre)
  • number of stems (Number)
  • stem diameter (Centimetre)
  • above-ground dry standing biomass (Kilogram)
  • below-ground dry standing biomass (Kilogram)
  • dry standing biomass (Kilogram)
  • live stand tree basal area (square metres per hectare)
  • dead stand tree basal area (square metres per hectare)
  • live individual count (Number per hectare)
  • dead individual count (Number per hectare)
  • above-ground dry standing biomass (metric tonne per hectare)
  • below-ground dry standing biomass (metric tonne per hectare)
  • dry standing biomass (metric tonne per hectare)
  • tree decay factor (Unitless)
Data Resolution
  • 30 meters - < 100 meters
GCMD Science
  • BIOMASS
  • FOREST COMPOSITION/VEGETATION STRUCTURE
ANZSRC - FOR
  • Ecological applications
Topic Categories
  • Environment

People and Organisation

AuthorsAuthors
  • Librarian, Data
Point of ContactPoint of Contact
  • Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network
  • Armston, John
  • Lucas, Richard
  • Farrell, Rebecca
PublisherPublisher
  • Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network
Distributor's OrganisationDistributor's Organisation
  • Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network

Publications

PublicationsPublications
  • Armston, J., et al (2016). K&C Phase 4 &ndash; Status report. JAXA Kyoto & Carbon Initiative Phase 4 Science Team Meeting, 16th-18 February 2016, Tokyo, Japan.
  • Lucas, R., et al (2010). An evaluation of the ALOS PALSAR L-band backscatter - Above ground biomass relationship Queensland, Australia. IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing, 3, 576&ndash;593.
  • Paul, K. I., et al (2016). Testing the generality of above-ground biomass allometry across plant functional types at the continent scale. Global Change Biology
  • Duncanson, L., et al, (2020). Global Aboveground Biomass Product Validation Best Practices Protocol. Version 1.0. In L. Duncanson, et al (Eds.), Best Practice Protocol for Satellite Derived Land Product Validation: WGCV/CEOS
  • TERN Field Data Protocol

Data Quality

Data QualityData Quality
  • Data Quality Assessment Scope:

    Site level Spatial domain - preliminary analysis indicates a relative paucity of observations in the Great Western Woodlands and Kimberley regions in Western Australia, and the savanna woodlands of Cape York in Queensland. An assessment will be presented in a forthcoming publication. Temporal domain - the majority of sites were surveyed between 1995 and 2015, which is coincident with most satellite sensor data used to support regional to global above-ground biomass mapping. Many plots are very small in size (<0.1 ha) and should be considered in methods used to link these field data with remote sensing data.

  • Data Quality Assessment Result:

    The relative tree level error contributions summarised over the whole dataset are as follows: 1) Allometric model development – moisture content determination for converting fresh mass into dry mass = 5.3%. 2) Allometric model development – fresh mass weighing errors = 0.2%. 3) Allometric model development – Diameter measurement of individual trees = 0.1%. 4) Allometric model development – Allometric model fit errors = 5.1%. 5) Inventory - individual diameter measurement errors = 1.1%. 6) Allometric model prediction errors = 88.2%.

    A number of site observation locations were not measured using GPS units that could achieve positional accuracy <10 m. This is generally only the case for sites last surveyed prior to 2000 and is continuously improving as sites are revisited.

Related datasets

with matching subjects

Access data
  • /attachment/fc4a7249-ebb2-4ada-8e06-b552bfb297a3/biomass_library_site_level_attributes.txt
  • /attachment/fc4a7249-ebb2-4ada-8e06-b552bfb297a3/biomass_library_tree_level_attributes.txt
  • /attachment/fc4a7249-ebb2-4ada-8e06-b552bfb297a3/biomass_plot_library_workflow.png
  • /attachment/fc4a7249-ebb2-4ada-8e06-b552bfb297a3/biomass_plot_measurements_spatial_database.png
  • Field Data Portal
Contacts
  • Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network
  • Building 1019, 80 Meiers Rd
  • QLD 4068
  • Australia

Contact us

Physical & Mail Address
The University of Queensland
Long Pocket Precinct
Level 5, Foxtail Building #1019
80 Meiers Road
Indooroopilly QLD 4068 Australia

P (07) 3365 9097
E esupport@tern.org.au

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Version:5.1.1