[Effects of topographical condition and sampling number on the interpolation precision of forest litter carbon density].

ABSTRACT

The territory of Zhejiang Province, East China was grouped into 3 topographical units (plain-coastal area, hill-basin area, and mountain area) to investigate the effects of topographical condition and sampling number on the Kriging interpolation precision of forest litter carbon density in the Province. The forest litter carbon density in the 3 topographical units showed a medium spatial correlation pattern, with the semi-variance nugget/sill ratio value ranged from 28.3% to 72.4%. The Kriging interpolation precision was in the order of plain-coastal area > hill-basin area > mountain area, indicating that the Kriging interpolation precision decreased with the increase of terrain complexity degree. Within the same topographical units, the Kriging interpolation precision improved with increasing sampling number, being most obvious in the mountain area. Therefore, under complicated topographical conditions, greater sampling number was required to achieve a high precision of Kriging interpolation.