The availability and spatial distribution of forest treatment residues are prerequisites to supply chain development for bioenergy production. To accurately estimate potential residue quantities, data must be provided to simulate stand-level silviculture across the landscape of interest. However, biomass utilization assessments often consider broad regions where adequate data are not supplied. At present, these measures are addressed using strategic level assessments and broad-based management that may not be applicable to all areas of the landscape. This thesis introduces a new methodology for spatially describing stand-level treatment residue quantities based on detailed silvicultural prescriptions and site specific management. Using National Agricultural Imagery Program (NAIP) imagery, the forest is segmented into treatment units based on user defined size constraints. Using a remote sensing model based on NAIP imagery and Forest Inventory and Analysis plot data, these units are attributed with stand-level descriptions of basal area, tree density, above ground biomass, and quadratic mean diameter . The outputs are used to develop silvicultural prescriptions and estimate available treatment residues under three alternative management scenarios at a range of delivered prices per bone dried ton (bdt) to a nearby bioenergy facility in southwestern Colorado. Using a marginal cost approach where treatment costs were covered by merchantable yields, the breakeven delivered price of treatment residues in this study is $48.94 per bdt yielding 167,685 bdt following a 10 year management simulation at a 5,000 acre per year annual allowable treatment level.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:MONTANA/oai:etd.lib.umt.edu:etd-01102014-143515 |
| Date | 07 February 2014 |
| Creators | Wells, Lucas A. |
| Contributors | Woodam Chung, David Affleck, Marco Contreras, Nathaniel Anderson |
| Publisher | The University of Montana |
| Source Sets | University of Montana Missoula |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.lib.umt.edu/theses/available/etd-01102014-143515/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University of Montana or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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