Preliminary tests were conducted of on the use of the Relative Height Method, developed originally by Andrade and Leite (1997), to corry out a forest inventory. The proposed method was compared with one of the conventional methods, that consists of measuring the diameter of all the trees, the height of about 15 trees and the height of about five dominant trees per plot. For processing these data, hipsometric and volumetric equations are used, with the latter being generated from tree scaling data in the stand. The relative height method includes only data obtained in the portions, without the need to scale trees in the stand. Data of four plots and 277 tree samples were used to compare the two methodologies (conventional and relative height). The volumes for the two methods were similar (156,21 and 156,19 m³/ha). Thus, it can be concluded that the alternative method is promising, even resulting in some advantages, such as: reduction of the number of heights measured in the plots, elimination of the activities of tree sample scaling and adjustment of volumetric and, or, taper models.
Forest inventory; relative height method; taper; analytic geometry
