Skip to contents

National volume-to-biomass conversions models

The CanadaForestAllometry package implements the national volume-to-biomass conversion models developed by Boudewyn et al. (2007), which allow to translate between merchantable stem volume and aboveground biomass components. These models were designed to enable consistent large-scale biomass estimation in situations where inventory systems report volume rather than directly measured biomass. The Boudewyn et al. (2007) approach combines species- and ecozone-specific conversion factors with empirically derived component allocation equations to estimate stemwood, bark, branches, and foliage biomass from merchantable volume. The functions use the updated model parameters available at https://nfi.nfis.org/en/biomass_models.

  • v2b() - converts merchantable volume to biomass components
  • vol_total_to_merchantable() - converts total volume to merchantable volume
  • agb_component_proportions() - calculates component proportions (stemwood, bark, branches, foliage) using either merchantable volume or total aboveground biomass as input

References

Boudewyn, P., X Song, Magnussen, S, Gillis, M.D., 2007. Model Based Volume-to-biomass Conversion for Forested and Vegetated Land in Canada, Forestry. Natural Resources Canada, Canadian Forest Service, Pacific Forestry Centre, Information Report BC-X-411, Victoria, Canada.