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Figure 1: Location of stem inventory sites across Australia with allometric estimates of biomass
These datasets are not static - they are directly created from PostGIS database records and will change with ongoing data collection and improvements to the biomass plot library.
These data are currently made available via a field data portal. Information on the details of the attribute fields for the site and tree level attributes are located in this document in the section titled 'Observation attributes'.
Only the site level mean biomass estimates are currently available. The tree level data and error propagation results will be made available by May 2016.
Descriptor | Data link | |
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Persistent URL or DOI | http://www.auscover.org.au/purl/biomass-plot-library | |
GeoNetwork record | http://www.auscover.org.au/geonetwork?uuid=833bde0f-15c9-4e7a-b682-f3d7397c33ad | |
Field data portal | http://qld.auscover.org.au/public/html/field/ |
Item | Detail |
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Rights | Copyright 2016 JRSRP. Rights owned by the JRSRP. Rights licensed subject to Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0). |
Licence | Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. |
Access | 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. A publication on the Biomass Plot Library is forthcoming. We ask that you send us citations and copies of publications arising from work that use these data. |
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 to 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 (Figure 2).
Figure 2: Plot measurement spatial database
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. (2016a,b) 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 (Roxburgh & Paul, 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 (Figure 3). In total eight sources of error are included, with four of these relating to errors encountered during allometric model development, with additional errors arising from diameter measurements during field inventory, allometric model prediction errors, and plot sampling and areal extent errors during field inventory. The tree level error propagation and biomass predictions were undertaken using the Carbon Analysis Tool (CAT), a software system developed by CSIRO for the Department of the Environment in support of vegetation-based greenhouse-gas mitigation activities under the Emissions Reduction Fund.
Figure 3: Biomass plot library workflow
Item | Detail |
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Typical spatial resolution | 0.05 - 1 ha |
Spatial coverage (degrees) | 110.000000 to 155.001329 E, -10.000000 to -45.000512 N |
Temporal resolution | 1 day |
Temporal coverage | 1936-11-26 to ongoing |
Instrument | Diameter tape |
Item | Detail |
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Spatial representation type | Vector |
Spatial reference system | WGS 84 |
Item | Detail |
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Name | John Armston |
Organisation | Joint Remote Sensing Research Program (JRSRP), University of Queensland |
Position | Senior Scientist |
j.armston@uq.edu.au | |
Role | pointOfContact |
Item | Detail |
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Name | Richard Lucas |
Organisation | Joint Remote Sensing Research Program (JRSRP), University of NSW (UNSW) |
Position | Professor |
richard.lucas@unsw.edu.au | |
Role | pointOfContact |
Item | Detail |
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Name | Rebecca Farrell |
Organisation | QLD Department of Environment & Science |
Position | Scientist (Remote Sensing) |
rebecca.farrell@des.qld.gov.au | |
Role | pointOfContact (Field Data Portal) |
The following organisations contributed to the Biomass Plot Library:
Funding for development of Biomass Plot Library and Field Data Portal was largely provided by the Queensland Department of Science, Information Technology, and Innovation through the Joint Remote Sensing Research Program.
Funding for development of the functional type allometric models was largely provided by the Department of the Environment, Australia.
Thesauri | Keyword |
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GCMD | EARTH SCIENCE > BIOSPHERE > VEGETATION > FOREST COMPOSITION/VEGETATION STRUCTURE EARTH SCIENCE > BIOSPHERE > VEGETATION > BIOMASS |
CF | |
FoR | Environmental Sciences > Ecological Applications = 0501 |
There are three main thesauri that AusCover recommends:
Table 1: The relative tree level error contributions summarised over the whole dataset
Error source | Percentage of total variation |
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Allometric model development – moisture content determination for converting fresh mass into dry mass. | 5.3 |
Allometric model development – fresh mass weighing errors | 0.2 |
Allometric model development – Diameter measurement of individual trees | 0.1 |
Allometric model development – Allometric model fit errors | 5.1 |
Inventory - individual diameter measurement errors | 1.1 |
Allometric model prediction errors | 88.2 |
Item | Detail or link |
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Presentation | Armston, J., Lucas, R., Scarth, P., Gill, T., Phinn , S., Roxburgh, S. H., Paul, K. I. , Bunting, P. (2016). K&C Phase 4 – Status report. JAXA Kyoto & Carbon Initiative Phase 4 Science Team Meeting, 16th-18 February 2016, Tokyo, Japan. |
Publication | Lucas, R., Armston, J., Fairfax, R., Fensham, R., Accad, A., Carreiras, J., Kelley, J., Bunting, P., Clewley, D., Bray, S., Metcalfe, D., Dwyer, J., Bowen, M., Eyre, T., Laidlaw, M., & Shimada, M. (2010). An evaluation of the ALOS PALSAR L-band backscatter - Above ground biomass relationship Queensland, Australia: Impacts of surface moisture condition and vegetation structure. IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing, 3, 576–593. |
Publication | Paul, K. I., Roxburgh, S. H., Chave, J., England, J. R., Zerihun, A., Specht, A., Lewis, T., Bennett, L. T., Baker, T. G., Adams, M. A., Huxtable, D., Montagu, K. D., Falster, D. S., Feller, M., Sochacki, S., Ritson, P., Bastin, G., Bartle, J., Wildy, D., Hobbs, T., Larmour, J., Waterworth, R., Stewart, H. T., Jonson, J., Forrester, D. I., Applegate, G., Mendham, D., Bradford, M., O’Grady, A., Green, D., Sudmeyer, R., Rance, S. J., Turner, J., Barton, C., Wenk, E. H., Grove, T., Attiwill, P. M., Pinkard, E., Butler, D., Brooksbank, K., Spencer, B., Snowdon, P., O’Brien, N., Battaglia, M., Cameron, D. M., Hamilton, S., McAuthur, G., & Sinclair, J. (2016a). Testing the generality of above-ground biomass allometry across plant functional types at the continent scale. Global Change Biology, doi:10.1111/gcb.13201 |
Publication | Paul, K. I., Roxburgh, S. H., Chave, J., et al. (2016b). Testing the generality of total below-ground biomass allometry across plant functional types at the continent scale. In prep. |
Report | Roxburgh, S. H & Paul, K. I. (2016). Comprehensive propagation of errors for the assessment of woody biomass. Report to the Department of the Environment, prepared as part of reporting requirements under the Methodology Development Grant Program (MDGP). CSIRO. Canberra. |
Item | Product link |
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Terrestrial laser scans | http://www.auscover.org.au/purl/tls-tree-models-rushworth |
Vegetation height and structure | http://auscover.org.au/purl/icesat-vegetation-structure |
Version label | Date | Detail |
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1.0 | 2016-04-14 | Initial release |
1.1 | 2016-05-04 | Revised site level error propagation |
1.2 | 2016-06-20 | Revised list of licenced tree level data. Inclusion of previously missing measurement data. |
Field | Format | Description (units) |
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obs_key | text | Unique identifier for site and visit for data management purposes |
source | text | Organisation from which the data was sourced |
project | text | The project for which the data was acquired |
site | text | Name of the site |
estsurvey | text | Name of the survey that established the site |
estdate | date | Start date of the site survey that established the site (a single site survey may span several days) |
survey | text | Name of the site survey |
obs_time | date | Start date of the site survey (a single site survey may span several days) |
nplots | integer | Number of plots within the site |
sampledarea_ha | double | Summed area of all plots (ha) |
sitearea_ha | double | Site area (ha). sitearea_ha >= totalsubplotarea_ha |
sitedmin | double | Minimum tree diameter measured in the site survey |
[poly_]geom | geometry | Multipolygon, polygon, or point object of the plot footprint/s |
longitude | double | Longitude of site centroid |
latitude | double | Latitude of site centroid |
live_basal_area | double | Live stand basal area (m2 ha-1) |
dead_basal_area | double | Dead stand basal area (m2 ha-1) |
live_stem_density | double | Live tree number density (n ha-1) |
dead_stem_density | double | Dead tree number density (n ha-1) |
agb_drymass_ha | double | Above-ground dry standing biomass density of trees/shrubs (Mg ha-1) |
agb_drymass_se_ha | double | Above-ground dry standing biomass density standard error of trees/shrubs (Mg ha-1) |
bgb_drymass_ha | double | Below-ground dry standing biomass density of trees/shrubs (Mg ha-1) |
bgb_drymass_se_ha | double | Below-ground dry standing biomass density standard error of trees/shrubs (Mg ha-1) |
tb_drymass_ha | double | Total dry standing biomass density of trees/shrubs (Mg ha-1) |
tb_drymass_se_ha | double | Total dry standing biomass density standard error of trees/shrubs (Mg ha-1) |
universal_agb | double | Fraction of above-ground dry standing biomass density predicted using the Universal allometric |
universal_count | double | Fraction of individual plants that had the Universal allometric applied. |
sizeclass | double | Lower bound of the 10cm diameter increment used to calculate the drymass values. Absence of this field indicates all size classes were included in the drymass values. |
Field | Format | Description (units) |
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fid | integer | Unique numeric identifer for data management purposes |
obs_key | text | Unique identifier for site and visit for data management purposes |
source | text | Organisation from which the tree measurement was sourced |
project | text | The project for which the tree measurement was acquired |
site | text | Name of the site the tree is from |
survey | text | Name of the site survey the tree was measured |
obs_time | date | Start date of the site survey (a single site survey may span several days) |
plot | text | Name of the plot the tree is from |
subplot | integer | Subplot identifier of the tree measurment for when variable size plots were used for different tree diameter classes |
subplotarea_ha | double | Subplot area (ha) |
subplotdmin | double | Minimum tree diameter measured in the subplot |
tree | text | Tree identifier |
species | text | Scientific name of the tree/shrub measured |
condition | integer | Tree condition code used to set the decay factor (Lucas et al., 2010) |
measurement | text | Diameter measurement height following tapering correction for allometric model (D10, DBH) |
ht | double | Top height of tree/shrub (NULL if not measured) |
nstems | integer | Number of stems measured for the tree/shrub |
diameter | double | Taper-corrected quadratic mean diameter of the tree/shrub (explanatory variable in the allometric model) |
agb_allometric_model | text | Name of the functional type above-ground biomass allometric model |
agb_prediction_error | double | Above-ground biomass allometric model prediction standard error (kg2) |
agb_correction_factor | double | Above-ground biomass correction factor |
agb_predicted_lndrymass | double | Above-ground biomass log dry standing biomass of trees/shrubs (kg) |
agb_drymass_allommcvar | double | Above-ground biomass allometric model moisture content variance (kg2) |
agb_drymass_allomfmvar | double | Above-ground biomass allometric model fresh mass variance (kg2) |
agb_drymass_allomdvar | double | Above-ground biomass allometric model stem diameter variance (kg2) |
agb_drymass_allomfitvar | double | Above-ground biomass allometric model parameter fit variance (kg2) |
agb_drymass_allompredvar | double | Above-ground biomass allometric model prediction variance (kg2) |
agb_drymass_invdvar | double | Above-ground biomass inventory stem diameter variance (kg2) |
agb_drymass_totalvar | double | Above-ground biomass total error variance (kg2) |
agb_drymass | double | Above-ground dry standing biomass of tree/shrub (kg) |
agb_drymass_sd | double | Above-ground dry standing biomass standard error of tree/shrub (kg) |
bgb_allometric_model | text | Name of the functional type below-ground biomass allometric model |
bgb_prediction_error | double | Below-ground biomass allometric model prediction standard error (kg2) |
bgb_correction_factor | double | Below-ground biomass correction factor |
bgb_predicted_lndrymass | double | Below-ground biomass log dry standing biomass of trees/shrubs (kg) |
bgb_drymass_allommcvar | double | Below-ground biomass allometric model moisture content variance (kg2) |
bgb_drymass_allomfmvar | double | Below-ground biomass allometric model fresh mass variance (kg2) |
bgb_drymass_allomdvar | double | Below-ground biomass allometric model stem diameter variance (kg2) |
bgb_drymass_allomfitvar | double | Below-ground biomass allometric model parameter fit variance (kg2) |
bgb_drymass_allompredvar | double | Below-ground biomass allometric model prediction variance (kg2) |
bgb_drymass_invdvar | double | Below-ground biomass inventory stem diameter variance (kg2) |
bgb_drymass_totalvar | double | Below-ground biomass total error variance |
bgb_drymass | double | Below-ground dry standing biomass of tree/shrub (kg) |
bgb_drymass_sd | double | Below-ground dry standing biomass standard error of tree/shrub (kg) |
tb_drymass_allommcvar | double | Total biomass allometric model moisture content variance (kg2) |
tb_drymass_allomfmvar | double | Total biomass allometric model fresh mass variance (kg2) |
tb_drymass_allomdvar | double | Total biomass allometric model stem diameter variance (kg2) |
tb_drymass_allomfitvar | double | Total biomass allometric model parameter fit variance (kg2) |
tb_drymass_allompredvar | double | Total biomass allometric model prediction variance (kg2) |
tb_drymass_invdvar | double | Total biomass inventory stem diameter variance (kg2) |
tb_drymass_totalvar | double | Total biomass total error variance |
tb_drymass | double | Total dry standing biomass of tree/shrub (kg) |
tb_drymass_sd | double | Total dry standing biomass standard error of tree/shrub (kg) |
Date | Detail |
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2016-04-14 | Metadata creation date |
2016-04-21 | Added statement on data availability and edited tree-level attributes |
2016-05-04 | Edited statement on data availability and changed some attribute names |
2016-06-13 | Edited tree-level attributes (variance components are now reported) |