Forest biomass mapping of Mount Cameroon National Park

Bc. Ondřej Vostarek

Master's thesis

Abstract:

Tropical rain forests are considered to play an important role in the global climate change mitigation, acting as a potential carbon sink. However, to assess their true contribution and develop appropriate management strategies an accurate information about forest biomass stocks and distribution is necessary. The forest aboveground biomass in Mount Cameroon National Park, a biodiversity hotspot hosting one of the remaining West African populations of African forest elephant (Loxodonta cyclotis Matschie, 1900), was estimated using generalized linear mixed effect modelling based on combination of field sampled data from permanent study plots, remotely sensed data from Landsat 8 OLI and Sentinel-1 satellites, and kernel home ranges derived from telemetric monitoring of four forest elephant individuals. The probability of forest elephant presence was found to be positively related to the forest aboveground biomass density and significantly improved the biomass prediction, suggesting the importance of local disturbance regime for forest aboveground biomass estimation, and implying the necessity of further research for understanding the complex relationship between forest elephants and aboveground biomass, which could be beneficial for the conservation of African forest elephants as well as for the accurate aboveground biomass estimation in Afrotropical forests.

Keywords

forest aboveground biomass, Loxodonta cyclotis, remote sensing, tropical montane forest, Mount Cameroon

Language used: English

Date on which the thesis was submitted / produced: 15. 6. 2020

Thesis defence

• Supervisor: Ing. Martin Mikoláš, Ph.D.

Czech University of Life Sciences Prague

Faculty of Forestry and Wood Sciences

Master programme / field:
Forestry Engineering / Tropical Forestry and Agroforestry