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Biomass Plot Library - National Collation of Stem Inventory Data and Biomass Estimation, Australian Field Sites 

Ver: 1.0
Status of Data: completed
Update Frequency: notPlanned
Security Classification: unclassified
Record Last Modified: 2025-12-02
Viewed 8959 times
Accessed 1195 times
Dataset Created: 2016-04-14
Dataset Published: 2021-12-03
Data can be accessed from the following links:
HTTPPoint-of-truth metadata URLHTTPbiomass_library_site_level_attributes.txtHTTPbiomass_library_tree_level_attributes.txtHTTPbiomass_plot_library_workflow.pngHTTPbiomass_plot_measurements_spatial_database.pngHTTPro-crate-metadata.jsonHTTPField Data Portal
How to cite this collection:
Joint Remote Sensing Research Program (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/fc4a7249-ebb2-4ada-8e06-b552bfb297a3 
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 not provided. 
Method DocumentationData not provided.
Procedure Steps

1. 

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. 

2. 

Field Overview: Field Data Overview 

Australia
Temporal Coverage
From 1936-11-26 to 2015-10-20 
Spatial Resolution

Data not provided.

Vertical Extent

Data not provided.

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 Report
Data not provided. 
Data Quality Assessment Outcome
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. 
ANZSRC - FOR
Climate change impacts and adaptation
GCMD Sciences
BIOSPHERE - BIOMASS
BIOSPHERE - FOREST COMPOSITION/VEGETATION STRUCTURE
Horizontal Resolution
30 meters - < 100 meters
Parameters
above ground dry standing biomass
above-ground dry standing biomass
below-ground dry biomass
canopy height
dead animal count
dead stand basal area
live individual count
live stand tree basal area
scientific name
stem count per tree
stem diameter
tree decay factor
Temporal Resolution
irregular
Topic
environment
Author
Joint Remote Sensing Research Program
Contact Point
Armston, John
Lucas, Richard
Data Enquiries, Earth Observation and Social Sciences (EOSS)
Publisher
Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network
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
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, 576–593.
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
TERN Field Data Protocol
Armston, J., et al (2016). K&C Phase 4 – Status report. JAXA Kyoto & Carbon Initiative Phase 4 Science Team Meeting, 16th-18 February 2016, Tokyo, Japan.
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Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Please cite this dataset as {Author} ({PublicationYear}). {Title}. {Version, as appropriate}. Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network. Dataset. {Identifier}. 
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). 
TERN services are provided on an "as-is" and "as available" basis. Users use any TERN services at their discretion and risk. They will be solely responsible for any damage or loss whatsoever that results from such use including use of any data obtained through TERN and any analysis performed using the TERN infrastructure.
Web links to and from external, third party websites should not be construed as implying any relationships with and/or endorsement of the external site or its content by TERN.

Please advise any work or publications that use this data via the online form at https://www.tern.org.au/research-publications/#reporting 
Copyright 2016 JRSRP. Rights owned by the Joint Remote Sensing Research Program.