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

Chapter 16: Conclusions SYSTEM CHANGE – DELIVERY ON SECTORAL AND SOCIETAL OUTCOMES NEEDS TO BE ACCELERATED SOE 13: Land Use Promote Integrated Land-mapping Approaches to Support Decision-making on Sustainable Land Use The development of an integrated national approach to land mapping could support better decision-making on land use and management practices. It could contribute significantly to mapping land use change and managing competing pressures on the environment, such as agriculture, urbanisation, tourism and recreation, energy projects, carbon sinks, ecosystem services and space for nature. EPA land cover mapping uses satellite imagery data to develop CORINE (Coordination of Information on the Environment) land cover maps (Chapter 5). These maps tell us a lot about the changes in Ireland’s land cover over the past decades. They have documented the loss of wetlands, especially peatlands, which is evident when the long-term trends are looked at. They also show that forest cover is low overall compared with other European countries. The use of earth observation and detailed satellite-based mapping, for example through further developments of the CORINE land cover maps, is expected to play a more important role in environmental protection in Ireland in the future. An important project led by Ordnance Survey Ireland, in partnership with the EPA and others, is now under way to make this happen. Using satellite data, the project team are developing a new detailed National Land Cover Map that could help with monitoring the environment by charting changes within river catchments and quantifying the extent of and changes to carbon sinks such as bogs and forests, for example. An Environmental Sensitivity Mapping Webtool has already been developed for use in Ireland. 13 While developed mainly for Strategic Environmental Assessment work, this webtool has wider applications. The mapped outputs from this webtool allow users to ‘highlight the relative environmental sensitivity of different areas’ and can be used to provide early warnings, inform the potential for land use conflicts and ‘provide a critical evidence basis for sectoral planning discussions and for developing alternatives that avoid or minimise potentially incompatible or unsustainable zonings’. A vision for the future could be a network of integrated catchment and land use management plans that could form the basis of a more integrated collaborative and cooperative approach to the environmental management of Ireland’s countryside (Chapter 13). It is not only the countryside where land mappings approaches can be used. These approaches also have relevance in urban areas, for example in tracking the extent of green and blue space for recreation and for the assessment of noise and air pollution from traffic sources. ‘The world is changing, and Ireland is changing too. The best way for our country to address the changes that we will continue to face, is to plan for the change’ – this is one of the messages from Project Ireland 2040 (Government of Ireland, 2019). This National Planning Framework has been put in place to guide Ireland’s development and investment over the next two decades. It provides for an expected population growth of one million people in the next two decades. To ensure balanced, sustainable development to 2040, national policy objectives in the framework on climate, environmental protection and natural resources will need to be progressed. The development of a coordinated, integrated national approach to land mapping, land cover and land use and management practices could help with the sustainable delivery of this project, as well as other national and sectoral plans. To achieve all of this we also need to inform, engage and support communities, farmers, businesses and sectors in the transition to sustainable and resilient land use practices. 13 https://www.enviromap.ie/ 447