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It seems like by looking at Google Maps. The US has a much higher tree coverage % compared to the British Isles. Especially when comparing areas with similar rain fall %. I wonder why this is. Did the UK have a much higher deforestation rate? Is the US better at replanting trees. We’re the areas in the UK and Ireland always just rainy green prairies?
The first trees began to colonise the tundra of Great Britain and Ireland during the late glacial period from 10,000 BC. They were limited only by high altitude, severe wind exposure and waterlogging. By 3000 BC everywhere that trees would grow was covered with forest, sometimes called the ‘wildwood’. The earliest evidence of large-scale clearance coincides with the introduction of Neolithic agriculture between 3100 and 2900 BC. During the Bronze Age (1700 to 500 BC) clearance extended into higher elevations though the great majority of the country remained forest. The Iron Age Celts arrived in about 400 BC, and with their superior equipment, began large-scale clearances to provide land for cultivation and for grazing. This process of felling, burning and grazing animals on coppice regrowth and seedlings, and converting forest to arable land and pasture went on for hundreds of years.
During the first twelve centuries AD much of the modern landscape became recognisable and the things which distinguish modern woodland from wildwood became widespread, including the separation of the woods from each other, definition of boundaries, enclosure to prevent grazing and, above all, management. By the 1000 it has been estimated that about 20 per cent of Great Britain and Ireland were covered with forest, though in England at this time it was probably less. Even then, some districts had scarcely any woods and elsewhere the landscape consisted predominantly of farmland with islands of woods rather than forest with isolated clearings.
It seems like by looking at Google Maps. The US has a much higher tree coverage % compared to the British Isles. Especially when comparing areas with similar rain fall %. I wonder why this is. Did the UK have a much higher deforestation rate? Is the US better at replanting trees. We’re the areas in the UK and Ireland always just rainy green prairies?
Are you aware of how small the UK is? There are nearly 70 MILLION people in the UK, that's 70 million people in an area little more than HALF THE SIZE of California. This should just about explain it all. In fact taking this into account when you think of the farmland needed and the mountainous areas, the moorland, the fens etc the fact that around 15% of the UK is forest is if anything pretty surprising!
Are you aware of how small the UK is? There are nearly 70 MILLION people in the UK, that's 70 million people in an area little more than HALF THE SIZE of California. This should just about explain it all. In fact taking this into account when you think of the farmland needed and the mountainous areas, the moorland, the fens etc the fact that around 15% of the UK is forest is if anything pretty surprising!
It seems like the mass majority of the rural UK is farmland. Where as maybe half of the east coast us is. The Great Plains where always prairies and had few trees even 500 years ago. I get what you’re saying about the U.K’s population density. However their cities also tend to be more compact and densely developed than American cities.
Last edited by Turnerbro; 09-15-2022 at 08:03 AM..
It seems like by looking at Google Maps. The US has a much higher tree coverage % compared to the British Isles. Especially when comparing areas with similar rain fall %. I wonder why this is. Did the UK have a much higher deforestation rate? Is the US better at replanting trees. We’re the areas in the UK and Ireland always just rainy green prairies?
Almost all of Britain and Ireland were forested, and would be again if left to nature. The exceptions would be places like sand dunes, seaside areas where wind and salt spray limits tree growth, marshes, mountaintops etc.
Large scale clearance for agriculture started thousands of years ago, to create grazing land and for crops. We're talking about the mid Holocene. The process continued until relatively recently when forest cover has increased a little.
So basically the climate of Britain and Ireland almost everywhere would support forests, and their absence is due to human activity.
There is at the moment a movement to try to reverse some of this, for example to reforest uplands that are used for wildly uneconomic, heavily subsidized sheep production. But it's quite controversial.
It seems like the mass majority of the rural UK is farmland. Where as maybe half of the east coast us is. The Great Plains where always prairies and had few trees even 500 years ago. I get what you’re saying about the U.K’s population density. However their cities also tend to be more compact and densely developed than American cities.
Again I think the fact that there are nearly 70 million people on an island that is smaller than Oregon explains quit a lot. The US has a population density of 36 people per square km the UK has 281 people per square km, in England its 434 people per square km! Half the East Coast is MANY times the size of the whole of the UK! The USA is 10 million km squared! The UK is less than 1/4 of 1 million km squared, there is a HUGE difference.
Again I think the fact that there are nearly 70 million people on an island that is smaller than Oregon explains quit a lot. The US has a population density of 36 people per square km the UK has 281 people per square km, in England its 434 people per square km! Half the East Coast is MANY times the size of the whole of the UK! The USA is 10 million km squared! The UK is less than 1/4 of 1 million km squared, there is a HUGE difference.
Population density doesn't explain everything though. Ireland has much the same climate as Great Britain, far fewer people and even less woodland.
Most of Britain's forests were gone by a thousand years ago when there were hardly any people living here compared with today. It doesn't actually take a huge number of people to clear forests even with primitive equipment, given enough time. And we've been at it for ~5000 years. With chainsaws and bulldozers etc it takes few people only a few decades as we've sadly seen recently in places like Amazonia.
A lot of upland Britain is very poor, uneconomic grazing land that could quite easily be reforested. Britain is far from all urban and suburban or even reasonable farmland.
Population density doesn't explain everything though. Ireland has much the same climate as Great Britain, far fewer people and even less woodland.
Most of Britain's forests were gone by a thousand years ago when there were hardly any people living here compared with today. It doesn't actually take a huge number of people to clear forests even with primitive equipment, given enough time. And we've been at it for ~5000 years. With chainsaws and bulldozers etc it takes few people only a few decades as we've sadly seen recently in places like Amazonia.
A lot of upland Britain is very poor, uneconomic grazing land that could quite easily be reforested. Britain is far from all urban and suburban or even reasonable farmland.
Ireland is only 84'000 square km!!! It's tiny. Oregon alone is 255,000 km squared!! You are still comparing apples to oranges. Ireland is actually far rainier than most of the UK and has a higher percentage of moorland and mountain regions than the UK, there is a reason why it's called the Emarald Isle. Ireland is 11% forested compared to the UK's 15%, taking into account the different terrain there is not that much difference.
Population density doesn't explain everything though. Ireland has much the same climate as Great Britain, far fewer people and even less woodland.
Most of Britain's forests were gone by a thousand years ago when there were hardly any people living here compared with today. It doesn't actually take a huge number of people to clear forests even with primitive equipment, given enough time. And we've been at it for ~5000 years. With chainsaws and bulldozers etc it takes few people only a few decades as we've sadly seen recently in places like Amazonia.
A lot of upland Britain is very poor, uneconomic grazing land that could quite easily be reforested. Britain is far from all urban and suburban or even reasonable farmland.
I don't think you can appreciate just how small this island is:-
USA size just under 10 MILLION km sq - population density 36 per km 2
Australia size 7.688 MILLION km sq - population density 3.3 per km 2
Canada size 9.985 MILLION km sq - population density 4 per km 2
England size 130,000 km sq (other country's are about 76 times as big!) - population density 426 per km 2
They are simply not comparable. There are 100 times as many people living every km 2 here compared to Australia or Canada! Thats 100 times as much farmland needed over a much smaller area. If you want to compare England, Scotland, Wales or even the whole of the UK then comparing it to countries the size of Continents isn't going to work. It needs to be compared to other similarly sized, similarly populated countries ore else its apples to oranges.
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