Assessment of Crown Measurement Techniques in Coppice Trees of Zagros Forests by UltraCam-D Aerial Imagery

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

1 Assistant Professor, Department of Desert Region Management, College of Agriculture, Shiraz University, Shiraz, I.R. Iran

2 M.Sc. student, Department of Desert Region Management, College of Agriculture, Shiraz University, Shiraz, I.R. Iran

Abstract

Crown cover is one of the most important biometric characteristics applied in Zagros forests
management that its measurement is more important in coppice trees because of their asymmetric
crown shape. The aim of this research was investigating on the accuracy and precision of different
mensuration methods of crown area measurement in Persian Oak coppice trees and the possibility of
mean crown diameter estimation of these trees by UltraCam-D imagery. The maximum and minimum
crown diameters of 125 Persian Oak coppice trees were inventoried in a 30 ha plot in the forests of
Kohgiluye-BoyerAhmad province. The crown area of each tree was measured on UltraCam-D aerial
imagery of the study area. Two circular and elliptical shapes and two mathematical and geometric
methods of calculating mean crown diameter were analyzed in this respect. The results showed that
the applied methods have no significant difference with the true crown area and they were accurate
enough. Although the crown area of the trees with circular shape and mathematical mean diameter
were 8.9 percent and with circular shape and geometric mean diameter and elliptical shape were 7.7
percent greater than the true values. The elliptical shape was also more precise in measuring the crown
area than two other methods. It was also possible to estimate the mean crown diameter of Persian Oak
coppice trees applying the aerial imagery and cubic models with no significant difference from the
true values.

Keywords

References

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