Primary Activities in the Greater Dublin Area (GDA) PDF
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St. Michael's College
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Summary
This document discusses the primary activities in the Greater Dublin Area (GDA), focusing on agriculture, fishing, and forestry. It details the agricultural sector's profitability due to favorable weather conditions and arable land, highlighting the production of wheat and potatoes. The document further describes the fishing sector's limitations due to a shallow continental shelf and high pollution levels, and notes that forestry is not significant.
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Geography REGIONS - European Primary Activities in the Greater Dublin Area (GDA) AGRICULTURE The Agri sector in the GDA is productive and intensive. A number of factors have made the agricultural sector here profitable – summer temps (19oC) along with long hours of daily sunshine lead to the GDA...
Geography REGIONS - European Primary Activities in the Greater Dublin Area (GDA) AGRICULTURE The Agri sector in the GDA is productive and intensive. A number of factors have made the agricultural sector here profitable – summer temps (19oC) along with long hours of daily sunshine lead to the GDA’s long growing season of almost 280 days. Relief in the GDA is generally low-lying; suitable for arable farming, development and the mechanisation of agriculture. The Dublin-Wicklow Mountains are restricted to pastoral farming due to steeper slopes. Brown soils are predominant in the GDA. These fertile soils formed when the litter of deciduous forests decayed into nutrient-rich humus. In Kildare, sandy outwash plains (Pleistocene ice age) support grasslands ideal for cattle fattening and the beef industry. Lusk and Rusk in North Dublin boast light sandy soils which are used for market gardening within greenhouses. The GDA has a market of over 1.5 million people. This has led to the development of large scale commercial firms in the surrounding rural areas. The region contains over 1,500 farms, producing 12% of Ireland’s wheat crop and 20% of Ireland’s potatoes. FISHING The GDA’s fishing sector is poorly developed for a core region. The Irish sea off the east coast does not contain an extensive continental shelf; this restricts the growth of plankton and limits the fish species it can host. Pollution levels are also relatively high in the Irish Sea due to chemical waste from both Ireland and Britain. The renegotiation of the common Fisheries Policy (CFP) in 1997 led to a 30% decrease in the region’s fish quotas. The GDA’s main ports- Howth and Skerries account for a mere 3% of total fish caught in Ireland, with Howth’s total fish landings in 2014 amounting to €10.7m. The GDA practises primarily demersal fishing in the lower sea depths. As seen across Europe, the GDA’s fish stocks are also rapidly depleting due to overfishing and driftnet fishing. Forestry: The GDA is mainly lowland and forestry is not a dominant activity. It is only practised in the Dublin mountains, where land is unsuitable for cultivation.
