EPA - Ireland's Environment, An Integrated Assessment - 2020

Chapter 5: Land and Soil The national Forestry Programme 2014-2020 includes targets to restore 2000 hectares of existing native woodland and create 2700 hectares of new native woodland. It also provides measures and commitments to protect our natural environment while supporting sustainable sectoral growth (DRCD, 2019). In 2016, the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine established environmental requirements for afforestation. In 2018, it published a draft plan to help sustainably manage forest activities in priority freshwater pearl mussel catchment areas (DAFM, 2018b). Recently, in efforts to help achieve planting targets, it also approved funding for an additional 15 proposals for sustainable forest management activities in 2019 and 2020. The Department of Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht has also reported that broadleaf planting levels have increased from 21 per cent to 27 per cent compared with 2017 levels. Built Environment Our cities, towns and villages need to be developed in a sustainable, planned and integrated manner. Good planning is good for our environment. As highlighted in the National Planning Framework, ‘a major new policy emphasis on renewing and developing existing settlements will be required, rather than continual expansion and sprawl into the countryside, at the expense of town centres and smaller villages’ (Government of Ireland, 2018, p. 11). More compact urban centres and efficient resource use reduces the tendency towards sprawl and a reliance on mainly carbon-intensive greenfield development, which leads to biodiversity loss, soil loss and increased soil sealing, with potential impacts on water quality. Population and settlement growth are drivers of land use change in urban areas. These changes have implications for soil quality, climate change, biodiversity integrity, air quality, flood risk and water quality. Soil sealing relates to the covering of natural surfaces by impermeable materials and is one of the main causes of soil degradation within the EU. It often affects fertile agricultural lands, puts biodiversity at risk, increases the risk of flooding and water scarcity, and contributes to global warming. The Seventh Environment Action Programme (EU, 2013) proposed having policies in place by 2020 to achieve ‘no net land take by 2050’. It also set targets for reducing soil erosion and loss of soil organic matter. Now that the government has published the National Planning Framework with initial targets for compact brownfield development, the next challenge for Ireland will be in measuring and monitoring how these targets are being met, the factors that are key to their success and what scope there should be for their enhancement. An important issue in this regard relates to the form and location of future housing provision, particularly in the extensive rural parts of Ireland beyond the 1.7 per cent of the country that was under settlement in 2017, as reported by the Central Statistics Office (CSO). 11 Ireland’s population could reach about 6 million by 2051 (CSO, 2018). The CSO reported that there were 442,669 one-off houses (defined by the CSO as ‘occupied detached houses with individual sewerage systems’) in 2016 (CSO, 2016). This represents 26 per cent of all occupied dwellings, with almost 40 per cent of all homes constructed between the 2011 and 2016 census periods being one-off houses (Figure 5.4). The darker coloured areas in Figure 5.4 represent greater levels of one-off housing. For 17 counties, one-off housing comprised over half of all dwellings built since 2011. For example, over 60 per cent of households in County Galway were one-off houses, the highest in the country. Counties Roscommon (56%) and Leitrim (52%) also had a large proportion of this type of housing. This type of housing depends on further on-site wastewater systems and the use of private cars for travel to places of work and learning and for leisure and services. Implementing robust policies in relation to rural settlements is very important to secure shared positive environmental outcomes. 11 https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-eii/eii19/landuse/ 115