The Second National Forest Inventory, Republic of Ireland: Results

The 2006 National Forest Inventory (NFI) was the first statistical and multi-resource inventory carried out on the national forest estate. In order to assess changes in the forest estate over time repeated assessments are required. As a result, the field data collection for the second NFI commenced in 2009 and was completed in 2012. Again multi-resource information was generated including parameters such as area and species composition, growing stock (m3) , biodiversity, health and vitality, carbon content and soil type; for the entire national forest estate. Data on minor tree species and natural regeneration were also included. With this Second NFI new parameters such as forest area change, volume increment and latest harvesting volume estimates allow, for the first time, monitoring of Sustainable Forest Management (SFM) on a temporal basis.