Assessment and Mitigation of Nutrients Losses from Forest Harvesting on Upland Blanket Peat - A Case Study in the Burrishoole Catchment

Impacts of forestry planting on primary production in upland lakes from north‐west Ireland

“…At sites where catchments are 50% planted or more, it is especially important that strategies are enacted to reduce potential damage to aquatic ecosystems, including application of discontinuous forestry, harvesting only on dry soils, maintenance of marginal buffer strips and brash mats. Elsewhere, these procedures have been shown to most effectively reduce nutrient, soil and suspended solid loss (Giller & O'Halloran, 2004;Rodgers et al, 2011;Xiao et al, 2010). In Ireland upland catchment buffer strips have been confirmed to help reduce the impact on aquatic ecology (Ryder et al, 2011), with a recommendation for a more targeted, species-specific fertilization to be applied gradually near tree roots, rather than spread openly on bare soil to minimize wastage and subsequent leaching (Renou-Wilson & Farrell, 2007).…”