GlobAllomeTree
Assessing volume, biomass and carbon stocks of trees and forests.
Assessing volume, biomass and carbon stocks of trees and forests.
GlobAllomeTree is the first international web platform to share and provide access to tree allometric equations, created in 2013. It builds on the convening role and technical expertise of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Agricultural Research for Development (Centre de coopération internationale en recherche agronomique pour le développement - CIRAD), and the Department for Innovation in Biological, Agro-Food and Forest System (DIBAF) at Tuscia University (Università degli Studi della Tuscia - UNITUS). Through collaboration with renowned research centres, allometric equations were collected in more than 78 countries in all the continents and made available through this platform.
GlobAllomeTree has extended the data available to tree biomass and volume measurements, wood density data and biomass expansion factors. A unique system of data sharing agreement protects data ownership and gives control to data owners on who they want to share their data with. Data users can look for dataset and may request access to the owner depending on the level of restriction set.
A free account is required to access protected and non-protected data. Tutorial and training material are accessible without registration.
Comments and suggestions for improving the database, software and website are welcome. Contact the GlobAllomeTree administrator at: globallometree@fao.org
Additional information on GlobAllomeTree can be found in the article “GlobAllomeTree: international platform for tree allometric equations to support volume, biomass and carbon assessment” published in iForest. A link to the article can be found on the document section of this website.
In forestry, allometry refers to the statistical relationships between various characteristics of tree size. Within normal limits of life-history-related variability, trees in a population develop in the same way. Therefore, the proportions between easy-to-measure tree characteristics such as diameter, height and wood density, and more difficult-to-measure variables such as volume and biomass, follow rules that are the same for all trees, large or small, if they are growing under the same conditions.
Allometric Equations »Wood density is the mass of wood per unit volume. It can be expressed in many different units, the most common ones being g/cm3, kg/m3 or ton/m3. Wood density is a key ecological trait, providing information on wood mechanical properties and useful information for many industrial, commercial and scientific purposes. Particularly, with recent climate change concern, and deforestation as a major source of global emissions, wood density has become useful for accurate carbon accounting.
Wood Density »Tree volume and biomass are keys to develop allometric models and average volume and carbon stocks for various forest conditions. Models’ quality and representativeness depend partly on forest conditions studied and the number of trees used for developing the model. By providing access to tree data, GlobAllomeTree intends to increase collaboration opportunities among data owners and users to improve existing model and forest carbon stock estimates.
Volume and Biomass Data »In many countries and projects, volume and carbon information is only available for tree commercial parts. Biomass expansion factor is a multiplicative factor to convert commercial volume or biomass to the whole aboveground tree.
Biomass Expansion Factors »