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<journal-meta>
<journal-id journal-id-type="publisher">BGD</journal-id>
<journal-title-group>
<journal-title>Biogeosciences Discussions</journal-title>
<abbrev-journal-title abbrev-type="publisher">BGD</abbrev-journal-title>
<abbrev-journal-title abbrev-type="nlm-ta">Biogeosciences Discuss.</abbrev-journal-title>
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<issn pub-type="epub">1810-6285</issn>
<publisher><publisher-name></publisher-name>
<publisher-loc>Göttingen, Germany</publisher-loc>
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</journal-meta>
<article-meta>
<article-id pub-id-type="doi">10.5194/bg-2020-36</article-id>
<title-group>
<article-title>Improving maps of forest aboveground biomass: A combined approach using machine  learning with a spatial statistical model</article-title>
</title-group>
<contrib-group><contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Dai</surname>
<given-names>Shaoqing</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0858-4728</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff2">
<sup>2</sup>
</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff8">
<sup>8</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Zheng</surname>
<given-names>Xiaoman</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff2">
<sup>2</sup>
</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff8">
<sup>8</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Gao</surname>
<given-names>Lei</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4272-9417</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff3">
<sup>3</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Xu</surname>
<given-names>Chengdong</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff4">
<sup>4</sup>
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</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Zuo</surname>
<given-names>Shudi</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff2">
<sup>2</sup>
</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff5">
<sup>5</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Chen</surname>
<given-names>Qi</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff6">
<sup>6</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Wei</surname>
<given-names>Xiaohua</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2711-5636</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff7">
<sup>7</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Ren</surname>
<given-names>Yin</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff5">
<sup>5</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
</contrib-group><aff id="aff1">
<label>1</label>
<addr-line>Key Laboratory of Urban Environment and Health, Key Laboratory of Urban Metabolism of Xiamen, Institute of Urban Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, CN 361021, China</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff2">
<label>2</label>
<addr-line>University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, CN 100049, China</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff3">
<label>3</label>
<addr-line>CSIRO, Waite Campus, Urrbrae, SA 5064, Australia</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff4">
<label>4</label>
<addr-line>State Key Laboratory of Resources and Environmental Information System, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, CN 100049, China</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff5">
<label>5</label>
<addr-line>Ningbo Urban Environment Observation and Research Station-NUEORS, Chinese Academy of Sciences, CN 315800, China</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff6">
<label>6</label>
<addr-line>Department of Geography, University of Hawai&apos;i at Mānoa, Honolulu, HI 96822, USA</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff7">
<label>7</label>
<addr-line>Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of British Columbia, Kelowna, BC V1V 1V7, Canada</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff8">
<label>8</label>
<addr-line>These authors contributed equally to this work.</addr-line>
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<pub-date pub-type="epub">
<day>25</day>
<month>02</month>
<year>2020</year>
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<volume>2020</volume>
<fpage>1</fpage>
<lpage>35</lpage>
<permissions>
<copyright-statement>Copyright: &#x000a9; 2020 Shaoqing Dai et al.</copyright-statement>
<copyright-year>2020</copyright-year>
<license license-type="open-access">
<license-p>This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this licence, visit <ext-link ext-link-type="uri"  xlink:href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/</ext-link></license-p>
</license>
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<self-uri xlink:href="https://bg.copernicus.org/preprints/bg-2020-36/">This article is available from https://bg.copernicus.org/preprints/bg-2020-36/</self-uri>
<self-uri xlink:href="https://bg.copernicus.org/preprints/bg-2020-36/bg-2020-36.pdf">The full text article is available as a PDF file from https://bg.copernicus.org/preprints/bg-2020-36/bg-2020-36.pdf</self-uri>
<abstract>
<p>&lt;p&gt;Aboveground biomass (AGB) estimates at the plot level plays a major part in connecting accurate single-tree AGB measurements to relatively difficult regional-scale AGB estimates. However, complex and spatially heterogeneous landscapes, where multiple environmental covariates (such as longitude, latitude, and forest structure) affect the spatial distribution of AGB, make upscaling of plot-level models more challenging. To address this challenge, this study proposes an approach that combines machine learning with spatial statistics to construct a more accurate plot-level AGB model. The study was conducted in a &lt;i&gt;Eucalyptus&lt;/i&gt; plantation in Nanjing, China. We developed, evaluated, and compared the accuracy and performance of three different machine learning models [support vector machine (SVM), random forest (RF), and the radial basis function artificial neural network (RBF-ANN)], one spatial statistics model (P-BSHADE), and three combinations thereof (SVM &amp; P-BSHADE, RF &amp; P-BSHADE, RBF-ANN &amp; P-BSHADE) for forest AGB estimates based on AGB data from 30 sample plots and their corresponding environmental covariates. The results show that the performance indices RMSE, nRMSE, MAE, and MRE of all combined models are substantially smaller than those of any individual models, with the RF &amp; P-BSHADE combined method giving the smallest value. These results demonstrate clearly that combined models, especially the RF &amp; P-BSHADE model, can improve the accuracy of plot-level AGB models and reduce uncertainty on plot-level AGB estimates or even on large-forested-landscape AGB estimates. These research results are important because they reduce the uncertainty in estimates of the regional carbon balance.&lt;/p&gt;</p>
</abstract>
<counts><page-count count="35"/></counts>
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