Handling Data Gaps in Reported Field Measurements of Short Rotation Forestry

Diana-Maria Seserman and Dirk Freese
Additional contact information
Diana-Maria Seserman: Chair of Soil Protection and Recultivation, Institute of Environmental Sciences, Brandenburg University of Technology Cottbus–Senftenberg, Konrad-Wachsmann-Allee 6, 03046 Cottbus, Germany
Dirk Freese: Chair of Soil Protection and Recultivation, Institute of Environmental Sciences, Brandenburg University of Technology Cottbus–Senftenberg, Konrad-Wachsmann-Allee 6, 03046 Cottbus, Germany

Data, 2019, vol. 4, issue 4, 1-16

Abstract: Filling missing data in forest research is paramount for the analysis of primary data, forest statistics, land use strategies, as well as for the calibration/validation of forest growth models. Consequently, our main objective was to investigate several methods of filling missing data under a reduced sample size. From a complete dataset containing yearly first-rotation tree growth measurements over a period of eight years, we gradually retrieved two and then four years of measurements, hence operating on 72% and 43% of the original data. Secondly, 15 statistical models, five forest growth functions, and one biophysical, process-oriented, tree growth model were employed for filling these data gap representations accounting for 72% and 43% of the available data. Several models belonging to (i) regression analysis, (ii) statistical imputation, (iii) forest growth functions, and (iv) tree growth models were applied in order to retrieve information about the trees from existing yearly measurements. Subsequently, the findings of this study could lead to finding a handy tool for both researchers and practitioners dealing with incomplete datasets. Moreover, we underline the paramount demand for far-sighted, long-term research projects for the expansion and maintenance of a short rotation forestry (SRF) repository.

Keywords: missingness; data gap; statistics; amelia; yield-safe (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C8 C80 C81 C82 C83 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2306-5729/4/4/132/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2306-5729/4/4/132/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jdataj:v:4:y:2019:i:4:p:132-:d:270467

Access Statistics for this article

Data is currently edited by Ms. Cecilia Yang

More articles in Data from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().