Project Description
Refinement of forest growth model frameworks for Ireland and comparison of stand versus single tree growth models for timber forecasting, planning and carbon sequestration assessment.
Accurate forecasts of the Irish timber supply are required to inform policy and management
decisions relating to sustainable forest resource utilisation, assessments of product supply to the processing industry and to meet EU and international reporting requirements such as setting national carbon accounting projected reference levels. The National Forest Inventory (NFI) is a statistically produced database of the forest estate in Ireland.
The second cycle of measurements in the NFI has recently been completed and together with the first set of measurements, growth increments and change in the forest estate may be obtained. Two forecasting methods, GROWFOR and CARBWARE, have both been developed using Coillte’s Permanent Sample Plot (PSP) dataset which has been shown to contain bias in the volume measurements. Using the NFI the two modelling systems will be validated and a statistical analysis will compare their performance in relation to timber forecasting. The outcome of the validation will highlight where the models can be refined and improved using NFI
data. Improvements to the single tree models would facilitate a more accurate assessment of timber assortment forecasts by capturing site to site variations in diameter distributions and stem taper.
