A comprehensive field survey is assessing the ecological state of Northern Ireland’s countryside, the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) has said.
The announcement was made during the second day of a national conference on soil monitoring in Belfast yesterday (Tuesday, November 5).
The Northern Ireland Countryside Survey, funded by DAERA, will track changes in the countryside, plants, habitats and land cover, by periodically re-visiting a set of randomly selected sites.
DAERA said that the survey is not designed to monitor the actions of individual farmers, but rather to provide a picture of countryside change across Northern Ireland.
The site locations used as part of the survey are kept confidential to maintain the scientific integrity of the survey methodology.
The results of the survey, which include soil sampling for the first time, are due to be published in 2026 and will be used to inform policies to manage the countryside sustainably.
DAERA
Dave Foster, DAERA’s director of Natural Environment Policy Division, said that this will be the fourth such survey to take place since it first began in the late 1980’s.
“The survey collects a wide range of information on habitats, field boundaries and plant species to help us understand how our local countryside and natural resources are changing over time.
“Field surveyors collect the information from 288 sites that were randomly selected at the very start of the survey.
“This long term data set taken in the same way from the same land over a long period of time is priceless,” he said.
Foster said the information being collected will show how land management and land use has affected the landscape since the previous survey in 2007/2009.
The majority of the field survey work is being carried between August to September 2023 and from May and September 2024, and will be followed by a repeat survey of vegetation in 2026/27.
Survey
The Northern Ireland survey is led by the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (UKCEH), in collaboration with the Agri-food and Biosciences Institute (AFBI) and Queen’s University Belfast (QUB).
The survey is linked to the GB Countryside Survey, which will enable a unique picture of long-term countryside change at a UK scale.
“It will also form part of the monitoring and evaluation of the Environmental Farming Scheme, inform a range of policy development and reporting obligations relating to the environment,” Foster said.
He also thanked landowners for granting access to the land for the survey.
“Your help is very much appreciated with enabling this important survey work that will benefit our countryside for years to come,” Foster said.