y (Drew and Flewelling, 1977) or the stand density
index of Reineke (1933), can be useful tools for
assessing forest structure, by evaluating the state of
competition between trees within a stand, while also
providing information on stem density and size. Relative
density is essentially a packing ratio that relates
the mean volume of trees to the density of stems, as
a function of the self-thinning rule (Drew and