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Classification of Ireland’s land area into four categories in relation to availability for forestry expansion and the area of productive and marginal agricultural land with most potential for forestry expansion.
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The Irish Government reiterated its commitment to expand the productive forest area to 18% of the land area by 2046 (DAFM 2014) in order to maintain a sustainable processing sector with its many additional benefits. The process of increasing afforestation rates may also offer significant scope to mitigate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, especially...
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Context 1
... outcomes of our analysis of land deemed most likely to have potential for afforestation are presented in Table 3 and Figure 2. An area of 1.49 M ha, 21.3% of the land area of Ireland, was classified as having category 1 constraints, being biophysically unavailable for afforestation (classified as forest, urban, water, road and rail, electricity utilities and buildings). ...
Context 2
... outcomes of our analysis of land deemed most likely to have potential for afforestation are presented in Table 3 and Figure 2. An area of 1.49 M ha, 21.3% of the land area of Ireland, was classified as having category 1 constraints, being biophysically unavailable for afforestation (classified as forest, urban, water, road and rail, electricity utilities and buildings). ...
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Citations
... Targeting land use for both afforestation and bioenergy in Ireland is complex and challenging. There have been calls to target these land-based mitigation options at so-called "marginal grassland" soils 15 (Farrelly and Gallagher, 2015). The area of "marginal grassland" has been estimated at 1.3 million hectares, which could therefore provide significant land-based mitigation. ...
Land use in Ireland is dominated by grasslands, with significant areas of forestry and wetland, which are not distributed evenly across the country. Changes to Irelands climate have already been observed and are projected to increase over the coming decades, impacting the land system. AFOLU in Ireland is a substantial GHG source and achieving net-zero GHG emissions targets for the sector by 2050 will be very challenging. Measures considered in this report include afforestation, peatland restoration and optimised livestock production. Land based climate mitigation measures may result in trade-offs for biodiversity and water quality, the avoidance of which require an integrated approach to land management.
... The GIS is a type of database containing geographic data, combined with software tools for storing, manipulating, analyzing, and exploring relationships between a vast quantity of spatially referenced data [40]. Geographical information systems have been used in the environmental field to combine spatial data and carry out suitability analyses [41,42]. In this study, ArcGIS 10.7 was used to prepare the data, carry out the land suitability analysis, and produce maps and statistical outputs. ...
... quantity of spatially referenced data [40]. Geographical information systems have been used in the environmental field to combine spatial data and carry out suitability analyses [41,42]. In this study, ArcGIS 10.7 was used to prepare the data, carry out the land suitability analysis, and produce maps and statistical outputs. ...
... The productive agricultural land is important for maintaining food security, especially under the changing climate [78] and given the more recent food shortages related to the Russian-Ukrainian war, and thus hardly available for afforestation. A similar situation was established by the study of Farrelly and Gallagher [41] in the Republic of Ireland where 65% of land deemed suitable for afforestation was classified as productive agricultural land and thus is expected to be devoted for agricultural purposes. Nevertheless, through strategic planning and after ensuring good consideration for the agricultural sector and food security in Scotland, small woodland and hedgerows can be created on suitable farmlands. ...
One of the key areas in which the United Kingdom government plans to achieve net zero, reduce GHG emissions and sequester carbon is through afforestation. Afforestation will also provide ecosystem services to society. The Scottish government’s target is to increase woodland cover in Scotland to 25% by 2050. In this study, a land suitability analysis was used to investigate the likelihood of achieving this target based on the biophysically suitable and available land considering the current policy constraints for planting Sitka spruce (Picea sitchensis) in Scotland. The results showed that about 19% of land area in Scotland is biophysically suitable for Sitka spruce and about 13% is biophysically suitable and available based on policy constraints. Thus, there is an opportunity for the Scottish government to increase the woodland cover in Scotland to 31.5% and exceed its 25% woodland target. However, for Scotland to achieve net zero by 2045, it will require that more trees be planted on higher-quality agricultural land, different from areas where trees are currently planted.
... On this basis, the model maintains the livestock density per hectare on the remaining land, reducing average land use equally across all agricultural enterprises. While general, this assumption is plausible; although environmental regulations such as the EU Nitrates Directive may cause intensive farmers to maintain marginal land in grassland rather than forest, and that land availability for afforestation has diminished due to environmental restrictions and cumulative afforestation over the last 30 years, Farrelly and Gallagher (2015) estimate that a pool of 1.3 m ha of grassland remains that is suitable for afforestation but marginal for agriculture. ...
The importance of forests in the provision of ecosystem services that provide multiple benefits to society is increasingly being recognised. These services include climate change and greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation, water quality protection, fibre for timber processing or wood energy and recreation opportunities. However, afforestation targets across Europe are not being met, despite the availability of planting subsidies in some countries. Using Ireland as a case study, this paper uses a novel technique to examine the afforestation participation decision utilising a choice modelling framework, where a revealed preference methodology is applied to the land use change from agriculture to forestry at individual farm level for the first time. The model coefficients are consistent with economic theory relative to the utility maximisation of income, leisure and wealth (long term land value) and suggest that while income is a key driver of the participation decision at individual farm level, the non-pecuniary benefits from farming are also a consideration.
... To achieve planting targets of 8,000 ha/yr, additional land will be required to be planted; is this feasible? Farrelly & Gallagher (2015a) identified an area of 3.75 million ha of land suitable for afforestation in Ireland, of which 1.3 million ha was classified as marginal agricultural land. In the 1980s, Bulfin (1987) performed a similar analysis and concluded that much of the marginal agricultural land had the potential for forestry to provide good yields over relatively short rotations, providing alternative sources of incomes for farmers. ...
... Advancements in geographic information systems (GIS) have used these principles to assess the suitability of Irish soils for forestry (Loftus et al., 2002). In recent years, more complex GIS modelling techniques incorporate multiple competing land use objectives to provide a more realistic assessment of the amount of land available for afforestation (Farrelly & Gallagher, 2015a). The advent of climate change creates uncertainty in the current state of knowledge surrounding tree species selection and new research into the adaptive potential of key forest tree species to climate change in Ireland is necessary (Farrelly, 2021). ...
... The outputs of research have informed afforestation scenario modelling and had a significant impact in providing input to forest policy development and public discourse on forestry in relation to economic impact of forestry. To achieve desired afforestation targets, the work of Farrelly & Gallagher (2015a) suggests that in principle sufficient land resources exist to increase forest cover, while the research of Ryan et al. (2018) suggests that considerable effort will be required to initiate future land use change, perhaps requiring a deeper understanding of the drivers of land use change. The incorporation of behavioural economics, particularly in relation to long-term decisions and attitudes associated with afforestation, is necessary. ...
... To achieve planting targets of 8,000 ha/yr, additional land will be required to be planted; is this feasible? Farrelly & Gallagher (2015a) identified an area of 3.75 million ha of land suitable for afforestation in Ireland, of which 1.3 million ha was classified as marginal agricultural land. In the 1980s, Bulfin (1987) performed a similar analysis and concluded that much of the marginal agricultural land had the potential for forestry to provide good yields over relatively short rotations, providing alternative sources of incomes for farmers. ...
... Advancements in geographic information systems (GIS) have used these principles to assess the suitability of Irish soils for forestry (Loftus et al., 2002). In recent years, more complex GIS modelling techniques incorporate multiple competing land use objectives to provide a more realistic assessment of the amount of land available for afforestation (Farrelly & Gallagher, 2015a). The advent of climate change creates uncertainty in the current state of knowledge surrounding tree species selection and new research into the adaptive potential of key forest tree species to climate change in Ireland is necessary (Farrelly, 2021). ...
... The outputs of research have informed afforestation scenario modelling and had a significant impact in providing input to forest policy development and public discourse on forestry in relation to economic impact of forestry. To achieve desired afforestation targets, the work of Farrelly & Gallagher (2015a) suggests that in principle sufficient land resources exist to increase forest cover, while the research of Ryan et al. (2018) suggests that considerable effort will be required to initiate future land use change, perhaps requiring a deeper understanding of the drivers of land use change. The incorporation of behavioural economics, particularly in relation to long-term decisions and attitudes associated with afforestation, is necessary. ...
In this paper, we provide an overview of achievements in forest research in Ireland carried out by various agencies over the past 60 yr. Many of the outcomes of the research have ensured that policy and practice are well-founded, and many of the research results form the basis of current forest standards and practice. Forest research has, and will continue to have, a significant role in national policy development and international reporting commitments. The achievement of future goals and targets is increasingly dependent on the maintenance of the goods and services that forests provide; these can be enhanced through the establishment of new forests and by appropriate management of the resource (e.g. The EU Green Deal and EU Forest Strategy). We outline the current state of knowledge which can be used to inform afforestation goals and the importance of tree improvement, forest management and forest protection to improve competitiveness and sustainability. Research into forestry and carbon provides a focus on the opportunities and challenges of climate change to Irish forestry. Future efforts will involve longer-term monitoring of environmental change commensurate with the forest rotation to reduce the uncertainties associated with climate change. Research into forestry economics, attitudinal surveys and behavioural studies may help inform the achievement of future policy goals. Reducing the impacts of biotic attack through efficient surveying, disease monitoring and assessing future risk is likely to be the focus of future research effort. Keywords Climate change • forest policy and practice • forest research • Irish forestry
... In Europe, some analysis has been carried out at a national and regional scale. For example, Farrelly and Gallagher (2015) found 4.65 million hectares of land in the Republic of Ireland to be potentially suitable for forestry, accounting for a range of physical and environmental constraints. Within the UK, similar assessments have been carried out for Scotland (Sing et al., 2013) and Snowdonia National Park in Wales (Gkaraveli et al., 2004); however, the lack of a detailed and comprehensive assessment of space available for afforestation means the feasibility of meeting UK wide planting targets is uncertain. ...
To explore the feasibility of meeting recently proposed large-scale tree planting targets, a UK wide assessment of land available for afforestation was carried out, considering a range of physical, environmental and policy constraints in three hypothetical planting scenarios. Results show there is sufficient space to meet these targets in all three scenarios, even if planting is prevented on good to moderate quality agricultural land and within protected areas. However, this would require planting on a large proportion of unconstrained land, especially for the more ambitious targets, which is unevenly distributed across the UK. This would limit opportunities for spatially targeting woodland creation, which may restrict the provision of additional ecosystem services such as air pollution control and recreation, and induce widespread negative impacts on landscapes and communities. In order to overcome these limitations, relaxing constraints, such as permitting afforestation of higher quality agricultural land, will need to be considered. Meeting many of the proposed afforestation targets would result in a transformational change in British land cover, which could replace or significantly impact the business models of tens of thousands of farms, and see the replacement of hundreds of thousands to millions of hectares of grassland, arable and horticultural land and other land covers. This would require rates of planting that far exceed those seen historically. Policies and mechanisms that could be used to encourage this planting, both by the state and private sectors, are discussed.
... For example, the significant afforestation on organic soils that took place in the 1990s has proved to have a negative impact on timber quality (section 2.4), and accompanying drainage activities are likely to have resulted in significant soil carbon loss. It has been suggested that the most pragmatic approach to afforestation in Ireland would be to focus planting on so-called "marginal grassland" soils and "marginal farming systems" (Farrelly and Gallagher, 2015). The area of marginal grassland has been estimated at 1.3 million ha, which would provide a significant area for afforestation. ...
This report translates key findings from the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Special Report on Climate Change and Land (SRCCL) into the context of the Irish land system. The SRCCL is particularly relevant for Ireland because of the specific challenges to climate change mitigation and adaptation presented by the country’s land system and land use. This report informs policy in relation to the scale of these challenges. It identifies pressures in terms of greenhouse gas (GHG) fluxes from the land system and how these emissions relate to land use and its economic outputs. Finally, the report focuses on solutions in the form of an assessment of actions that can be taken to simultaneously address climate mitigation and adaptation in the land system.
Knowledge gaps are identified and recommendations for future research are made.
Although land use in Ireland is dominated by grassland (61.0% in 2016) and related grassland-based agriculture, there is significant variation in the intensity of grassland management across farming systems. Economically, agricultural outputs are dominated
by ruminant livestock in the form of dairy and beef production. However, pigs, cereals (barley, wheat and oats), sheep, poultry, potatoes and mushrooms are also important. The area of forestry in Ireland has increased dramatically over the last century, from around 1.4% in 1918 to around 10.7% in 2016. However, the forest area remains relatively low
compared with the average for the first 28 Member States of the EU (EU-28), and the rate of afforestation has slowed in recent decades. Peatlands cover a significant area but are largely degraded by human activities such as peat extraction. A national land use map, including data on land use intensity, would enable a better understanding of the dynamics of the land system in Ireland and facilitate targeted implementation of actions.
Current data on the principal land-based GHGs – carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O) – were summarised and assessed. Over the period 2010–2017, agriculture contributed 28.8% of GHG emissions in Ireland, a substantially larger portion than the EU-28 average over the same period (10.3%). This contrast was driven by the dominance of ruminant livestock production and a relatively low level of heavy industry in Ireland. Again in contrast to the EU-28, the land use, land use change and forestry (LULUCF) category was a net source of GHGs in Ireland between 2010 and 2017.
Agricultural emissions are dominated by CH4 emissions from ruminant livestock and manure management and by N2O emissions resulting from fertiliser use and soil management. Despite improvements in production efficiency in the agriculture sector, expansion and intensification have led to increases in absolute GHG emissions over the last decade. Forestry is an important net carbon sink, but its contribution is likely to decline in the coming decades as the rate of afforestation is decreasing. Peatlands and
organic soils under agricultural management are significant GHG sources, but there is large uncertainty regarding actual GHG emissions from these lands, and their extent and drainage status represents a key knowledge gap.
The potential of 40 integrated response options to contribute to climate mitigation and adaptation and other land system challenges was assessed for Ireland, with 12 of the options found to be highly applicable. Options considered highly applicable in terms of potential to mitigate climate change, particularly at an individual consumer level, include
dietary change, such as a shift towards “sustainable healthy” diets, and a reduction in food waste. Actions aimed at increased food productivity and improved grazing land and livestock management also have high potential but could lead to “rebound effects” in
terms of absolute environmental footprint. Agroforestry and agricultural diversification are highly applicable, yet these options face considerable barriers to uptake by landowners, and a review of current policies is recommended. Although afforestation and bioenergy have considerable mitigation potential, they could have negative impacts on biodiversity and increase land competition if implemented at large scales. The restoration of peatlands and organic agricultural soils represents a major opportunity to reduce GHG
emissions and create carbon sinks, but positive outcomes require major investment and may be limited by site-specific constraints. Biodiversity conservation goals may be more likely to succeed where integrated with land use planning including climate mitigation
and adaptation strategies. Implementation of land-based response options requires a sustainable land management approach, one in which local communities and landowners are actively engaged in the planning and implementation process.
... 67% of afforestation occurs on marginal agricultural land. Of this, 56% is marginal grassland (Farrelly & Gallagher, 2015). Over the same period public afforestation declined to close to zero since 2005 (iffpa, 2018). ...
... Under the current Forestry Programme and endorsed by the Food Wise 2025 strategy paper, Ireland has a target to expand forest cover to 18% of the land area by 2050 (approximately 1.25 M ha) in order to maintain a sustainable processing sector (dafm, 2018b; dafm, 2015). To achieve this target, an annual afforestation target of 16,000 ha per year would be required (Farrelly & Gallagher, 2015). Whether a planting rate of 16,000 ha per year is achievable is uncertain, particularly given the recent decline in afforestation from 15,696 ha per year in 2000 to just over 5,500 ha per year in 2018 (dafm, 2018c; iffpa, 2018). ...
... For terms and conditions of usage please see: http://creativecommons.org 56,378 ha. Afforestation undertaken to the predicted extent would lead to low land-use competition, as it is undertaken on marginal agricultural land, which according to Farrelly and Gallagher (2015) is not predicted to be brought back into agricultural production at reasonable costs. Taking these behavioural factors into account, a yearly voluntary rate of 6,000 ha up to 2030 is projected, assuming a linear up-take rate from 2021 on. ...
Agricultural Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions in Ireland are projected to increase up to 21 Mt CO2eq by 2030 mainly driven by increased dairy cow numbers and increased nitrogen fertiliser use. In response to the growing public awareness of the GHG emissions' environmental impact, the Irish government published the Climate Action Plan in 2019, which identifies the agricultural sector's leading role in reducing GHG emission and increasing carbon removals to achieve the national GHG emission targets by 2030. Marginal Abatement Cost Curves (MACCs) on Irish GHG emissions have projected the total technically feasible mitigation potential for the Irish agriculture, forestry and land use (AFOLU) sector to be sufficient enough to achieve the set targets by 2030. Although these mitigation measures are available and when implemented, would mostly lead to a win-win situation, the voluntary adaptation rate by farmers is low. This study addresses the most significant determinants of voluntary adoption of mitigation measures by systematically examining existing literature on how and to what extent non-price determinants affectthe voluntary adoption rate of technically feasible mitigation measures in the Irish afolu sector. The main identified nonprice determining factors were the degree of farmers' awareness regarding man-made GHG emissions, receiving agrienvironmental advice, implementation costs, profitability and size of farms, land quality and the type of farm enterprise. Integrating the gained results in the former macc analysis enabled us to adopt the implementation rates of the cost-efficient afolu mitigation measures accordingly. The non-price determinants impact the voluntary uptake rate of AFOLU mitigation measures to the extent that the adjusted total Irish AFOLU abatement potential is 47% lower than technically feasible. Considering that 51.6% of the total estimated AFOLU abatement potential in 2030 is offset through Irish forestry, which at current afforestation rate will turn into a net carbon source by 2035, a significant gap occurs to any potential Irish and EU GHG reduction targets. To substantially help bring the nexus between agricultural development and GHG emission targets in Ireland closer together, policy measures, that differentiate between the different type of AFOLU mitigation measures, need to be implemented to enhance the uptake rate of cost-beneficial and cost-effective measures. This would have the potential to reduce the level of agricultural GHG emissions by 2030 in a way that it would converge towards possible EU and Irish GHG emission reduction targets.
... These serve to highlight the difficulty of promoting permanent land use change to forestry (COFORD 2016). Further opportunities may exist to plant a considerable portion of land (circa 1.3 million ha) marginal to economic agriculture (Farrelly and Gallagher 2015), or for the incorporation of wood lots to provide biodiversity, climate and environmental objectives under future CAP Strategic Plans. ...
Acknowledgements The report benefited from the helpful comments from external reviewers, Arttu Malkamäki from the University of Helsinki and Margarida Tomé from the University of Lisbon. We wish to express our thanks for their insights and comments that helped to improve the report, and acknowledge that they are in no way responsible for any remaining errors.
... However, not all soils or regions are equally suitable for new afforestation. Farrelly and Gallagher (2015) identified 1.3 million ha of marginal agricultural land on which competition from other demands on land use is low (Fig. 1e). By contrast, the 2.4 million ha of productive agricultural land is likely to be the focus of agricultural intensification as part of Ireland's Food Wise 2025 Strategy (www. ...
Soils can be a sink or source of carbon, and managing soil carbon has significant potential to partially offset agricultural greenhouse gas emissions. While European Union (EU) member states have not been permitted to account for this offsetting potential in their efforts to meet the EU 2020 reduction targets, this policy is now changing for the period 2020 to 2030, creating a demand for land management plans aimed at maximizing the offsetting potential of land. In this letter, we derive a framework for climate-smart land management in the Atlantic climate zone of the EU by combining the results from five component research studies on various aspects of the carbon cycle. We show that the options for proactive management of soil organic carbon differ according to soil type and that a spatially tailored approach to land management will be more effective than blanket policies.
