ESTIMATION OF BOLE SURFACE-AREA AND BARK VOLUME WITH MONTE-CARLO METHODS

Many attributes of forest trees can be regarded as integrals of some c ontinuous-dimensional characteristic, and thus their estimation is ame nable to variance reduction sampling strategies that have been devised and developed in the simulation field. For the estimation of tree cha racteristics, these methods provide alternatives to the usual estimati on by a fitted regression, and in addition, they provide a flexibility to estimate the integral between any two heights on the tree bole. Th e application of these methods to the estimation of bole surface area and bark volume is explained, and practical aspects of implementation are discussed.