State and Impacts

Land Cover

Irish land cover is primarily agricultural, followed by bogs and wetlands and forestry. The Irish landscape has experienced continual land cover changes for centuries, but there has been a relatively high rate of land use change by European standards since the early 1990s. For example, the area under forestry has increased a quarter to over 10 per cent of national land cover, and the area of artificial surfaces (residential and industrial buildings, roads  etc.) increased by approximately 15 per cent since 2000 to 2.3 per cent of land cover.  There has been significant development on the periphery of many urban areas across Ireland. Similarly, rural areas have experienced widespread construction of single rural dwellings and the suburbanisation of villages close to towns and cities.

Approximately 75 per cent of the national forest estate is predominantly conifer, comprised mainly of commercial timber species but also including some native species such as Yew and Scots Pine. The remaining 25 per cent of the forest estate is predominantly broadleaf and mixed forest, of which approximately half is comprised of native broadleaf species such as Oak, Ash, Birch, Hazel, Alder etc. The proportion of broadleaf to coniferous species planted in recent years has increased, although the actual levels of planting have remained somewhat static.

Soil

A limited amount of information is known about Irish soils, but a late introduction into the industrial revolution preserved our soils from large amounts of contamination. The large percentage of permanent pasture land and our temperate climate have protected Ireland’s soils from serious degradation.  The general consensus is that soil quality in Ireland is good; however, this is based on limited information and therefore the degree of certainty is low. The production of a National Soils Database (2007) and the EPA Historic Mine Sites – Inventory and Risk Classification project (2010) has provided much needed baseline knowledge on soils in Ireland.

Forestry

Following a long period of afforestation, which began in 1904, forest cover has increased from 1 per cent to over 10.7 per cent of land cover. This compares with a European average of over 30 per cent. The strategic plan for the Irish forestry sector sets a national planting rate target of 20,000 ha per annum, and a target for forestry to reach 17 per cent of land cover by the year 2030. Recent planting rates have fallen well short of this target.