Ancient and Long-established Woodland Inventory 2010

Ancient woodland refers to those woods that have had a continuous history of cover since before the period when planting and afforestation became common practice (mid‐1600s). These woodlands are important in terms of their biological and cultural value, and may even form links with prehistoric wildwoods. To date, unlike our European counterparts, no extensive study of ancient woodland has been conducted in the Republic of Ireland, leaving these irreplaceable habitats open to threats such as woodland clearance. This polygon shapefile constitutes the main output from the Ancient and long-established Woodland Inventory 2010. A total of 481 woodland sites were digitised and the following categories were set up: - Possible ancient woodland (PAW) stands have been continuously wooded since 1660. - After additional research some PAW stands were upgraded to ancient woodland (AW) status. - Long‐established woodlands (LEW) have been continuously wooded since 1830. There are two sub‐categories, LEW (I) stands for which no evidence of antiquity could be found in older documentation, and LEW (II) stands for which there is evidence that the site is not ancient. In addition, for each digitised polygon the stand type on the OS maps was determined. The categories used were semi‐natural broadleaf (SNB), mixed woodland (MW), conifer plantation (CP), non‐native broadleaf (NNB) and recent clearfell (RC). This inventory is provisional in nature, investigating only a subset of Ireland’s woodland resource and available historical documents. However, it presents a working methodology to assist in the identification of these sites in Ireland. This study also promotes taking a multidisciplinary approach in the study of ancient woodlands.古林地（Ancient woodland）指自种植造林普及的时期（17世纪中期）之前便持续保有林木覆盖的林地。此类林地兼具重要的生物学与文化价值，甚至可能与史前原生林存在关联。迄今为止，与欧洲其他地区不同，爱尔兰共和国尚未开展过针对古林地的大规模系统性研究，致使这些不可替代的生境面临林地清伐等各类威胁。 本多边形形状文件（polygon shapefile）为《2010年古林地与长期林普查》（Ancient and long-established Woodland Inventory 2010）的核心产出成果。 本次研究共完成481处林地样地的数字化工作，并划分了如下类别： - 疑似古林地（Possible ancient woodland, PAW）样地：自1660年起便持续保有林木覆盖。 - 经补充调研核验后，部分疑似古林地样地被升级为古林地（Ancient woodland, AW）等级。 - 长期林（Long-established woodlands, LEW）：自1830年起便持续保有林木覆盖。其下设两个子类别：LEW (I) 指在早期历史文献中未发现任何古旧性证据的样地；LEW (II) 指有文献证据表明该样地并非古林地的样地。 此外，针对每一处数字化多边形样地，我们还确定了其在OS地图（OS maps）上的林分类型。所用分类标准包括：半天然阔叶林（semi-natural broadleaf, SNB）、混交林（mixed woodland, MW）、针叶人工林（conifer plantation, CP）、非本土阔叶林（non-native broadleaf, NNB）以及近期皆伐地（recent clearfell, RC）。 本次普查仅为阶段性成果，仅覆盖爱尔兰林地资源与可获取历史文献的子集。但其提供了一套可用于爱尔兰境内此类林地样地识别的实用方法论。本研究同时倡导在古林地研究中采用多学科交叉的研究路径。