Investigating diameter-height models of Persian oak (Quercus brantii Lindl) in height forests of Middle Zagros

Background and objectives: Efficient and high-quality information about the current and future state of the forest is needed for sustainable management and basic planning of forest resources. Zagros forests, as one of the most important vegetation areas of Iran, have a very important effect on water supply, soil conservation, climate adjustment and economic and social balance in the whole country, hence, the sustainable protection and management of these forest ecosystems The main concern of researchers and managers in this area has become vegetation. The dominant species of these forests is Iranian oak (Quercus brantii Lindl). According to geographical and environmental conditions, this species has various habitats in the vegetation zone of the middle Zagros. Considering the noble position of the Iranian oak species in the forests of Zagros, the importance of developing more researches regarding this species is essential. The characteristics of tree diameter and height are the most important components needed in forest statistics. These variables are one of the main variables for measuring the appearance characteristics of forest trees and are used in cases such as determining the volume and drawing the height curve. Considering that measuring the height of all forest trees is a long and expensive operation, hence the use of diameter and height models to estimate the height of trees has been developed. The purpose of this research is to investigate the linear and non-linear diameter-height models of Iranian oak species (Q. brantii Lindl) in the high forests of the Middle Zagros in order to find the answer to the question of whether it is possible to estimate the height of Iranian oak high forest trees as There is a function of the diameter of the chest in this vegetative zone or not.
Methodology: This research was conducted in Sefidkoh protected area of Lorestan. The dominant tree cover of this area is made of oak, like other areas of Zagros, but other plants and trees such as Cratagus persica pojark, Amygdalus sp, Astragalus sp, etc. can be mentioned in it. To carry out this research, by conducting numerous forest tours and getting to know the forests of the region, a stand with an area of approximately five hectares, which had a high forest vegetation structure, was selected. In the selected forest stand, the characteristics of DBH and total height of all Iranian oak trees whose DBH was more than 12.5 cm were counted as 100%. In total, 642 Iranian oak trees were measured in DBH and height. Linear and non-linear models were used to fit the data of DBH and height of trees, which include various models of exponential, power, density-product, growth, sigmoid and other functions. In this research, 80% of the data were used in the modeling process and 20% were used for evaluation, as well as for fitting the data and estimating the indicators of each of the models from the Curve Expert Professional software, which is a software Comprehensive software was used to fit the curves. In the modeling process, diameter data were used as independent variables and height data were used as dependent variables. In the upcoming research, to verify the accuracy of the obtained models, the RMSE, MAEand Bias in absolute and relative terms, as well as the R² and the AIC was calculated as validation indices.
Results: Based on the descriptive statistics of Iranian oak trees, the average, minimum and maximum DBH was 42.42, 12.5 and 150 cm, respectively, and the height was 6.3, 1.2 and 17 meters, respectively. Based on R² values, the used models explained 62 to 86% of the total changes in tree height. The results of tree height-diameter modeling showed that Gompertz, MMF and Richard models have the highest explanatory coefficient (0.86, 0.86, 0.86), respectively, and the lowest standard error (307. 1, 1/307, 1/307) and AIC information criterion were (276/04, 277/13, 277/03). The results of the criteria used to validate the used models showed that the Gompertz, MMF and Richard models have RMSE of 22.22, 22.20 and 22.20%, respectively, as well as MAE respectively. 16.69, 16.74 and 16.79 percent were better able to estimate the characteristics of the height of trees. According to the mentioned results, it was found that Gompertz, MMF, and Richard models have a higher ability to estimate the characteristic height of Iranian oak trees compared to other models.
Conclusion: Overall, the results of this research showed that linear and non-linear models have the ability to estimate the height of Iranian oak high forest trees in the growing region of the middle Zagros, and among these models, three non-linear models are Gompertz, MMF and Richard based on evaluation criteria. The performance was more accurate. Therefore, these models can be used in the forest areas of the middle Zagros vegetation zone, which have the same structure and habitat conditions as the studied area. It is suggested to use the generalized models of height and diameter in future researches.