The Irish Forestry greenhouse gas (GHG) profile is undergoing a transition from a net sink to net emission because of persisting emissions from organic soils, an increase in harvest and shifts in the age class structure of plantation forests. The forestry GHG trend diverges from the required National and European Union (EU) policy pathway for land use land use change and forestry (LULUCF) and agriculture aimed at halving emissions by 2030 and achieving carbon neutrality by 2050. A recalibrated version of the Carbon Budget Model of the Canadian Forest Service (CBM-CFS3) was used to assess the impact of identified national forest policy measures on the forest GHG profile over the short to long term. An analysis of projected scenarios revealed that, under current silvicultural practices and afforestation policies (with existing measures—WEMs), Irish forests will continue to be a long-term emission beyond 2070 unless harvest rates and management practices are adjusted to negate the adverse impact of emissions from organic soils and fluctuations in historic afforestation rates. The implementation of additional measures (WAM) suggests that the forest sink can be sustained if harvest rates exceed 75% of the net annual increment (NAI), additional afforestation targets are met and if plantation rotation age is increased. Although additional afforestation and a reduction in deforestation is required to meet long-term carbon–neutral goals, the implementation of these policies has a minimal short-term impact on the 2030 targets set out under the National Climate Change Plan (CAP 24) and the revised EU LULUCF regulation (841/2023). The results show that the extension of rotation age and associated reductions in harvest levels will have the greatest short-term impact on climate change mitigation, which can be delivered at a negative marginal abatement cost. However, even if WAM forest measures are implemented, Ireland is unlikely to meet the National and EU LULUCF targets by 2030 because of a decreasing forest sink.

Windthrow and the associated damage to forests have significant economic, social, and ecological impacts including increased harvesting costs and lost revenue, safety concerns for forest workers, and restriction on public access. The impacts of wind damage also directly affect greenhouse gas profiles associated with forest lands. This paper describes a two-stage forest monitoring approach that was devised for the purposes of assessing the impacts of the storms of winter 2024/2025, which included Storms Darragh and Éowyn, on the Irish forest estate. A range of Earth Observation (EO) datasets were used to assess the extent of windthrow damage within both public and private forests across the Republic of Ireland. The total area damaged was ca. 27,400 ha out of a total forest area of ca. 800,000 ha mainly affecting the north-west of the country. Based on scenarios developed to analyse the level of harvest in conjunction with the salvage operations, it was found that there was a decline in the sink capacity of the forest estate over the period 2025–2030. However, beyond this period, the sink capacity is restored as a result of the regeneration of the forests.

Net Annual Increment (NAI) is a key parameter for determining both the future amount of biomass available for wood supply and the expected evolution of the forest carbon sink. Most European countries estimate NAI as the difference between Gross Annual Increment and Annual Natural Losses (ANL). While the IPCC framework defines natural losses strictly as baseline natural mortality, Forest Europe also incorporates natural disturbance events. This conceptual difference is highly relevant when assessing the felling-to-increment ratio, a primary indicator for sustainable forest management. In this study, we applied a data-driven forest carbon model (CBM-CFS3) to simulate the historical evolution of gross and net annual increment across three case studies —Italy, the Czech Republic, and Ireland — evaluating how the adoption of either the IPCC or Forest Europe definition affects the quantification of felling rates.,Our results highlight that under the Forest Europe definition, where biomass losses from natural disturbances are fully incorporated into ANL, severe disturbance events trigger sharp, immediate declines in NAI. Conversely, under the IPCC methodology, NAI remains largely unaffected by natural disturbances. If the core purpose of calculating NAI is to quantify and predict the actual amount of biomass available for wood supply, we recommend explicitly incorporating natural disturbance events into ANL. From this perspective, the most rigorous assessment of the felling rate, also based on a modelling approach, should compare total fellings, separately quantifying salvage logging from natural disturbances, against the total aboveground NAI determined via the Forest Europe definition.

Perennial landscape features, such as hedgerows, can play a role in enhancing terrestrial carbon (C) sinks, especially in North-western Europe, where they form a large part of the agricultural landscape. To date, there are few studies relating aerial imagery to ground-truthed biomass measurements and relating changes in biomass to hedgerow management. This study sought to develop relationships between measured biomass of hedgerows and digital elevation model (DEM) data from drones and aircraft. Furthermore, changes in hedgerow above-ground and below-ground biomass stocks were assessed using a two-point sampling approach. The developed inventory framework was then applied to a pilot study area of 419,701 hectares in Ireland. Robust relationships were developed relating DEM data to volume and above-ground biomass. Model equations were also developed linking above-ground and below-ground biomass. However, these were less robust due to the confounding impact of hedgerow management. Aboveground biomass was linearly correlated with hedge volume with irregular, unmanaged hedgerows observed to contain significantly higher amounts of aboveground biomass compared to regular, highly managed hedgerows. When the models were extrapolated to the county level, hedgerow biomass C pools are suggested to be a net emission of -0.3 tC. ha-1.yr^-1 due to removals and management.