modeling historic, current, and available aboveground forest biomass along the missouri river ...

150 Pages·2014·3.8 MB·English

MODELING HISTORIC, CURRENT, AND AVAILABLE ABOVEGROUND FOREST
BIOMASS ALONG THE MISSOURI RIVER CORRIDOR
______________________________________
A Dissertation
Presented to
the Faculty of the Graduate School
at the University of Missouri-Columbia
_______________________________________________________
In Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements for the Degree
Doctorate of Forestry
_____________________________________________________
by
CHRISTOPHER W. BOBRYK
Dr. Hong S. He and Dr. Shibu Jose, Dissertation Supervisors
JULY 2014
© Copyright by Christopher W. Bobryk 2014
All Rights Reserved
The undersigned, appointed by the Dean of the Graduate School, have examined the
dissertation entitled:

MODELING HISTORIC, CURRENT, AND AVAILABLE ABOVEGROUND FOREST
BIOMASS ALONG THE MISSOURI RIVER CORRIDOR

presented by Christopher W. Bobryk,
a candidate for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy,
and hereby certify that, in their opinion, it is worthy of acceptance.

_________________________________________________________________
Dr. Hong S. He

_________________________________________________________________
Dr. Shibu Jose

_________________________________________________________________
Dr. Stephen R. Shifley

_________________________________________________________________
Dr. Cuizhen Wang

_________________________________________________________________
Dr. Robert Jacobson
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This research was made possible with help from many wonderful people and
organizations. I would like to thank my advisors, Dr. Hong He and Shibu Jose, for
attaining the financial support to sustain this research, which was provided by the
University of Missouri Geographic Information System Mission Enhancement Program
and The Center for Agroforestry, and for their encouragement that enabled me to be the
best student, researcher, and professional I could be. I would also like to thank my
committee members, Dr. Steve Shifley, Dr. Cuizhen Wang, and Dr. Robert Jacobson,
who were tough, thorough, and enlightening. I thank all of them for taking the time to
visit with me, helping me to think critically, and ultimately guiding me in the right
direction.
The individuals of the GIS and Spatial Analysis Laboratory deserve many special
thanks. I would not have made it through if it were not for people like Jacob Fraser, Jeff
Schneiderman, Mike Sunde, Wenchi Jin, Dr. Wenjuan Wang, and Dr. Brice Hanberry.
All the members of my family have also played a large role in my success and I thank
them all for their love, support, and encouragement. Lastly, I would like to thank my
wife, Shannon Marie Bobryk, the most important person in my life: Cogli l'attimo.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS .................................................................................................. ii
LIST OF FIGURES ........................................................................................................... vi
LIST OF TABLES ........................................................................................................... viii
ABSTRACT ....................................................................................................................... ix
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................... 1
1.1 IMPETUS ............................................................................................................. 1
1.2 REVIEW .............................................................................................................. 3
1.3 VIEWPOINTS ..................................................................................................... 6
1.4 JUSTIFICATION ................................................................................................. 6
1.5 OBJECTIVE......................................................................................................... 7
CHAPTER 2: Estimating aboveground forest biomass potential along the Missouri River
corridor, Missouri USA ...................................................................................................... 9
2.1 ABSTRACT ............................................................................................................. 9
2.2 INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................. 11
2.3 MATERIALS AND METHODS ........................................................................... 15
2.3.1 Study Area ...................................................................................................... 15
2.3.2 Aboveground Forest Biomass ........................................................................ 17
2.3.3 Landscape Variables ....................................................................................... 19
2.3.4 Biomass Estimation ........................................................................................ 21
2.3.5 Random Forest ................................................................................................ 22
2.4 RESULTS .............................................................................................................. 23
2.4.1 AFB Estimation .............................................................................................. 23
2.4.2 AFB Differences ............................................................................................. 24
2.4.3 Variable Importance ....................................................................................... 24
2.5 DISCUSSION ........................................................................................................ 25
2.5.1 Aboveground Forest Biomass Estimates ........................................................ 25
2.5.2 Variable Importance ....................................................................................... 27
2.6 CONCLUSION ...................................................................................................... 29
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CHAPTER 3: Determining environmental controls driving discrepancies between historic
and current aboveground forest biomass along the Missouri River corridor, Missouri,
USA................................................................................................................................... 48
3.1 ABSTRACT ........................................................................................................... 48
3.2 INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................. 50
3.3 METHODS ............................................................................................................ 54
3.3.1 Study Area ...................................................................................................... 54
3.3.2 Modeling Framework ..................................................................................... 56
3.3.3 Explanatory Variables .................................................................................... 57
3.3.4 Historic Aboveground Biomass...................................................................... 58
3.3.5 Current Aboveground Biomass ...................................................................... 59
3.4 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION ............................................................................ 59
3.4.1 Aboveground Forest Biomass Estimates ........................................................ 59
3.4.2 Variable Importance ....................................................................................... 60
3.4.3 Percent Changes ............................................................................................. 61
3.4.4 Abiotic controls .............................................................................................. 62
3.5 CONCLUSION ...................................................................................................... 64
CHAPTER 4: Geographic analysis of production suitability for available aboveground
forest biomass within the Missouri River Corridor, Missouri, USA ................................ 78
4.1 ABSTRACT ........................................................................................................... 78
4.2 INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................. 80
4.3 METHODS ............................................................................................................ 84
4.3.1 Study Area ...................................................................................................... 84
4.3.2 Suitability Criteria .......................................................................................... 85
4.3.2.1 Aboveground Forest Biomass ................................................................. 85
4.3.2.2 Landscape Variables ............................................................................... 87
4.3.3 GIS Processing ............................................................................................... 89
4.4 RESULTS .............................................................................................................. 92
4.4.1 Potential Biomass ........................................................................................... 92
4.4.2 Available Biomass .......................................................................................... 94
4.4.3 Suitability........................................................................................................ 94
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4.5 DISCUSSION ........................................................................................................ 94
4.5.1 Aboveground Forest Biomass Potential ......................................................... 95
4.5.2 Aboveground Forest Biomass Constraints ..................................................... 96
4.5.2 Aboveground Forest Biomass Suitability ....................................................... 97
4.6 CONCLUSION ...................................................................................................... 99
CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION ....................................................................................... 116
5.1 OVERVIEW ........................................................................................................ 116
5.3 FUTURE DIRECTIONS ..................................................................................... 119
REFERENCES ............................................................................................................... 123
VITA ............................................................................................................................... 138

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LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 2 - 1: The Missouri River Corridor by a 120 km (75 mile) buffer centered from the
Missouri River. ................................................................................................................. 31
Figure 2 - 2: Ecological subsections within the Missouri River Corridor. ....................... 32
Figure 3 - 1: The Missouri River corridor located in Missouri, USA. The corridor was
constructed based on a 75 mile buffer centered on the Missouri River. The entire study
region is approximately 106,000 km2 and contains 69 counties dissected by the Missouri
River. ................................................................................................................................. 66
Figure 3 - 2: Observed and predicted aboveground forest biomass model estimates from
the Historic RF model where the red line indicates model fit while the blue line indicates
the 1:1 slope. ..................................................................................................................... 67
Figure 3 - 3: Observed and predicted aboveground forest biomass model estimates from
the Current RF model where the red line indicates model fit while the blue line indicates
the 1:1 slope. ..................................................................................................................... 68
Figure 3 - 4: Estimated total aboveground forest biomass (Mg) for each forested pixel
(30m) for (A) Historic and (B) Current. ........................................................................... 69
Figure 3 - 5: Variable importance plots for current and historic aboveground forest
biomass estimates generated from Random a Forest regression procedure. .................... 70
Figure 3 - 6: Pixel-level percent change values between historic and current aboveground
forest biomass in the MRC. .............................................................................................. 71
Figure 3 - 7: Average percent change between historic and current AFB estimates
summarized by ecological subsection. .............................................................................. 72
Figure 3 - 8: Summarized percent changes with standard errors between historic and
current aboveground forest biomass estimates generated from a Random Forest
procedure........................................................................................................................... 73
Figure 4 - 1: The Missouri River corridor is approximately 106,000 km2 covers 21
counties and is divided into 21 ecological subsections. .................................................. 100
Figure 4 - 2: Flow chart illustrating processes to obtain suitability index. ..................... 101
Figure 4 - 3: (A) Percent changes between historic and current aboveground forest
biomass (AFB) estimated using a Random Forest procedure at the pixel scale. (B)
Average AFB summarized by ecological subsection. .................................................... 102
Figure 4 - 4: Variable importance plot for estimates of Current and Historic aboveground
forest biomass (AFB) generated from a Random Forest procedure. .............................. 103
Figure 4 - 5: The biomass mask is used to constrain total aboveground forest biomass
(AFB) estimated by the RandomForest model and identify areas of available AFB. The
mask was generated based on a kernel density estimate of forest transition values that
were ranked from 0 – 1 (i.e. after fuzzy membership algorithm was applied to values of
percent forest transition. Locations that were ≥ 0.95 based on the fuzzy membership
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analysis were masked to represent available areas. All other areas not covered by the
mask were considered not available and left out of the suitability analysis. .................. 104
Figure 4 - 6: Percent changes in Forest (top-bar), Agriculture (middle bar), and ‘Other’
(bottom bar) between 2001 and 2006. ............................................................................ 105
Figure 4 - 7: Total current (Unconstrained – Blue) and total available (Constrained – Red)
aboveground forest biomass summarized by each ecological subsection with standard
errors. .............................................................................................................................. 106
Figure 4 - 8: Fuzzy membership for (A) Euclidean distance, (B) percent change, (C)
forest transition, and (D) current AFB quantity covering all forested pixels (30m2). .... 107
Figure 4 - 9: Suitability index per ecological subsection where the horizontal bar
indicates the value used (0.9) to categorized subsections with the greatest suitability
(Loess Hills, Mississippi, and Missouri River Hills). ..................................................... 108
Figure 4 - 10: Available aboveground forest biomass suitability index based on Fuzzy
Logic processes in ArcGIS. ............................................................................................ 109
Figure 4 - 11: Constrained (available) aboveground forest biomass suitability categories
stratified by ecological subsection. ................................................................................. 110
Figure 5 - 1: Observed versus predicted AFB from the post-hoc RF model. Red line
indicates model fit and blue dashed line illustrates the 1:1 line. .................................... 121
Figure 5 - 2: Variable importance chart from the RF model. ......................................... 122

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LIST OF TABLES
Table 2 - 1: Ecological subsection descriptive information. ............................................. 42
Table 2 - 2: Description of environmental variables used to estimate aboveground forest
biomass in a Random Forest modeling procedure. ........................................................... 43
Table 2 - 3: Remote sensing image descriptions. ............................................................. 44
Table 2 - 4: Average aboveground forest biomass (AFB) estimates for the observed data
from Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA), Random Forest (RF) estimates of actual AFB
(Actual), and RF estimates of theoretical AFB (Theoretical) summarized by ecological
subsection. ......................................................................................................................... 45
Table 2 - 5: Random Forest model statistical summaries between current (FIA) and
theoretical (Upper-bound FIA) aboveground forest biomass estimates. .......................... 46
Table 2 - 6: Paired two sample t-Test for means of average estimates of AFB summarized
by ecological subsection between FIA and the Current RF Model. ................................. 47
Table 3 - 1: Summarization of GLO and RF AFB estimates. ........................................... 74
Table 3 - 2: Missouri River Corridor ecological subsection descriptions. ....................... 75
Table 3 - 3: Statistical summaries for RF Current and RF Historic estimates of AFB..... 76
Table 3 - 4: Paired two sample t-Test for means of average estimates of AFB summarized
by ecological subsection between FIA and RF. ................................................................ 77
Table 4 - 1: Description of environmental variables used to estimate aboveground forest
biomass in a Random Forest modeling procedure. ......................................................... 112
Table 4 - 2: Summary of average aboveground forest biomass estimates per ecological
subsection between Potential and Available AFB values. .............................................. 113
Table 4 - 3: Area and total aboveground forest biomass summarized by ecological
subsection. ....................................................................................................................... 114

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