An evaluation of ten estimators for fitting two-parameter weibull function to Nigerian forest stands

Abstract

The quality fit produce by distribution function such as the Weibull depends to an extent the type of estimator used to derive its parameters. Inappropriate choice of estimator could affect management decision. Though several estimators have been developed for the Weibull function, there application to forestry have been relatively few. Therefore, this study evaluated ten estimators of the Weibull parameters using tree diameter data from five production forest plantations in Nigeria. The estimators were generalized least type I and type II, L-moment, moments, maximum likelihood, percentiles, rank correlation, least squares, U-statistics and weighted least squares. The quality of fits of the Weibull function were evaluated with several statistics including, Kolmogorov-Smirnov, Anderson-Darling, Cramer-von Mises, and so on. Relative rank sum from the evaluation statistics of the methods was analysed using One-way analysis of variance. The results showed that weighted least square had the smallest statistics and relative rank, but not significantly different from L-moment, moments and maximum likelihood (p > 0.05). The performances of least squares, generalized least type I and type II, percentiles and U-statistics were relatively poor. Thus, either the weighted least squares, moments-based or MLE could be used for the Weibull function in the forest stands in Nigeria.

Keywords

• Moment-based methods,weighted least squares,maximum likelihood,Eucalyptus camaldulensis,Gmelina arborea

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