Proposed methodology for implementation of coarse woody debris forest inventory: a case study

Necromass (dead standing or fallen wood biomass) is an essential component of forest carbon stock, also serving as habitat and food for several forms of life in this ecosystem. Despite its ecological importance, few studies concerning sampling processes for necromass in forest inventories are conducted. This study evaluated a systematic sampling in two stages in a surviving fragment of Mixed Araucaria Forest. The Strand method was applied for the inventory of standing necromass and the Linear Intercept Sampling (LIS) for fallen necromass. The variables collected in the field were the diameter, height (standing necromass) and length (fallen necromass). The results indicated that the combination of methods was effective, facilitating field measurements of the variables, enabling satisfactory and accurate estimates of volume, with low values of the parametric estimates, indicatives of the quality of the forest inventory, resulting in 8% for the standard error and 16% for the sampling error.