Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry (LULUCF)

Question to bear in mind as you read this page - What would you like the Council to do to reduce the emissions from Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry

What is LULUCF?

Land Use, Land-use Change and Forestry covers the following categories; Forest land, Cropland, Grassland, Wetlands, Settlements, Other land and Harvested Wood products. Depending on the uses of land, land can either be an emitter of greenhouse gas emissions or it can sequester or absorb greenhouse gases.

What is the Council's influence

Waterford City and County Council is responsible for monitoring and protecting Special Areas of Conservation and Special Protected Areas, many of which are wetlands. The Council has also committed to increasing tree cover on council managed grounds to 20%.

What is the national picture

The proposed pathway to increasing carbon sequestration in LULUCF includes acceleration of tree planting rates, significant reduced management intensity of peatlands, and more efficient management of grasslands and croplands to reduce emissions. This will be further elaborated as part of agreeing a sectoral emissions ceiling in the coming year.

What is the local picture

As can seen by the image above, certain types of land use can result in carbon emissions (grassland where reseeding occurs more regularly than every 5 years and wetlands that have been drained) while other types of land use can result in carbon uptake or sequestration (forestry).

In total 60.9ktCO₂e came from Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry in 2018.