Steve Lane
Department of Forest and Ecosystem Science/ DegreePhD Thesis titleNonparametric estimation and prediction of tree size-class distributions. SupervisorsDr Andrew Robinson (Dept of Mathematics and Statistics) |
Steve and daughter Hannah |
Project outline
Predicting and estimating size-class distributions (SCDs), for example tree diameter, at breast height (DBH) is well established in the forestry literature, however most authors approaches assume the the distribution comes from a known parametric distribution family, or that it is unknown and is estimated by the stand's percentiles. Predictions of the size-class distributions at some point T in the future SCDs can then be related to stand-level characteristics, generally through an iterative process.
Using rotation-length, repeated measures data from plantation field experiments (e.g. stocking trials), Available data consists of individual rotation-length tree data from 5 trials (with multiple re-measurements) and due to the nature of this data, I aim to exploit the functional relationships that will arise over time. By not restricting the analysis to a defined parametric distribution or functional form, more general structures can be investigated, and it is through this process that I believe more efficient predictions of size-class distributions will be made. I will also look at investigating how size-class distributions react to various initial planting densities and various environmental and/or stand-condition variables that may then be useful in linking statistical and process-based modelling approaches.
This project contributes to Research Project 1.3: Modelling and Information Integration, from the Managing and Monitoring for Growth and Health program in the Cooperative Research Centre for Forestry.
Biography
I come into this project after graduating with a Bachelor of Science (Honours) from the University of Melbourne, and after working at the Australian Bureau of Statistics. I still have an ongoing relationship with the ABS.
Link to Postgraduate index page