Revista de gestión de la biodiversidad y silvicultura

Development of Allometric Equation for Estimating Aboveground Biomass in Ampang Forest Reserve,Malaysia

Nafisah Khalid and Juazer Rizal Abdul Hamid

The accurate estimation of aboveground biomass is crucial for assessing the amount carbon sequestration in tropical forest. Although various allometric equations already developed across the region, few researchers have been agreed that the sitespecific allometric equations are capable to improve the accuracy of aboveground biomass estimation. The intent of this study is to develop new site-specific allometric equation using stem diameter at breast height and tree height parameters. In total 96 trees with stem diameter at breast height more than 30 cm from 25 different species were measured from the Ampang Forest Reserve. The estimated total aboveground biomass for 96 trees using reference allometry was 383.714 while the estimated total aboveground biomass using new developed equation was 380.202 tonnes with only 0.9% different percentage. The results indicated a good coefficient of determination (R² ) value with 0.985. The results of this study also significantly improved the estimation accuracy as compared to the previous developed equations. The inclusion of the tree height in the developed equation is proven to be capable in estim