Authors: David O’Connor, Emma Markey, Jose Maria Maya-Manzano, Paul Dowding, Aoife Donnelly and John Sodeau, August 2022
Year: 2022
A reliable pollen forecast and monitoring system is a valuable tool to help allergy sufferers avoid unnecessary exposure to allergenic pollen and to optimise drug treatments by allergists. Ireland does not have a monitoring system in place and the forecast currently used is provided by the University of Worcester (UK). This project seeks to address this by undertaking the required monitoring and developing a forecast model.
Authors: Peter Medway, Dug Cubie and Martin Le Tissier, August 2022
Year: 2022
Climate research tells us that extreme weather events will become more frequent and severe. Climate change adaptation (CCA) focuses on the probable chronic long-term impacts likely to occur across multiple sectors. In contrast, emergency planning and disaster risk reduction (DRR) primarily aims to address acute short-term impacts. The project identifies how existing approaches to disaster risk reduction, disaster risk management (DRM) and CCA in Ireland are juxtaposed and concludes that identifying ways to promote coordination and align incentives, priorities and planning processes will facilitate a more holistic and comprehensive approach to DRM at all levels of government.
Authors: Mark Scott, Louise Burns, Mick Lennon and Oliver Kinnane, August 2022
Year: 2022
Climate change risks present a clear challenge for Ireland’s built environment. Adaptation is the critical second pillar of climate action alongside mitigation. This needs an urgent whole-of-government and whole-of-society approach. There is significant scope for increasing policy coherency towards adaptation through the planning system, building control, building regulation performance requirements, industry standards and building design specifications.
Authors: Máiréad Harding, Timothy Sullivan, Hannah Binner, Naghmeh Kamali and Martina Hayes, July 2022
Year: 2022
The United Nations Minamata Convention on Mercury is an international regulatory framework that aims to protect human health and the global environment from the harmful effects of mercury. This research identified that very little literature exists on the environmental and health impacts of mercury-free dental restorative materials. It identified small particles from the mercury-free dental restorative materials in dental wastewater (DWW) and says it is essential to consider enhanced capture of small particles from DWW as a priority.
Authors: Luis León Vintró and Niall Murphy, July 2022
Year: 2022
The aim of this research project was to develop and implement suitable Monte Carlo calibration methods for the assay of natural and artificial radionuclides using HPGe gamma spectrometers. A software application was developed as part of this project. The application makes use of a set of nominal input parameters describing an HPGe detector, together with experimentally determined full-energy peak efficiencies for a range of radionuclides in a variety of counting geometries, to produce an optimised model of the detector by applying suitable optimisation algorithms without any further user intervention.
Authors: Gerard Mullally, Alexandra Revez, Clodagh Harris, Niall Dunphy, Fionn Rogan, Edmond Byrne, Connor McGookin, Brian Ó Gallachóir, Paul Bolger, Barry O’Dwyer, Stephen Flood, Evan Boyle, James Glynn, John Barry and Geraint Ellis , July 2022
Year: 2022
Ireland faces considerable challenges in transitioning to a net-zero carbon and climate resilient future. This research focused on the challenge of engaging citizens and communities in climate action while also recognising that new and novel approaches are required to enable the transition to climate resilience. The co-creation of the Deliberative Futures Toolkit together with local, scientific and policy communities, provides a resource that can be used by communities and policymakers.
Authors: Vasiliki Balogianni, Bruce Osborne, Margherita Gioria and Dario Fornara, July 2022
Year: 2022
The presence of invasive alien plant species across Ireland and Europe has increased significantly in the past few decades. The impacts of these invasions vary but they can lead to major modifications in ecosystem functioning. This research project has broadened our understanding of the ecological traits, strategies and impacts of invasive species. This information can be used in the management of invasive plants and help to inform legislation that might need to be introduced or strengthened.
Illustration by Luczo Illustrative Designs, July 2022
Year: 2022
Invoice template to be used by Evaluators, Reviewers and Steering Committee Members when claiming per-diem rates and/or travel and accommodation reimbursements., July 2022
Year: 2022
Authors: Kathryn Schoenrock, Stacy Krueger-Hadfield, Kenan Chan, Rory O’Callaghan, Tony O’Callaghan, Aaron Golden and Anne Marie Power, July 2022
Year: 2022
In Ireland, Kelp forests can be found along rocky shorelines and dominates rocky substrata along the Irish coastline (approximately 3010 km out of the 7524 km of national shoreline). The report makes recommendations concerning monitoring and preserving kelp ecosystems nationwide. A range of resilience metrics was assessed for subtidal kelp forests in Ireland to better understand how to monitor, manage and simply understand these systems and their potential responses to climate shifts in nearshore ecosystems.
Authors: Rita Hagan, Emma Markey, Jerry Clancy, Mark Keating, Aoife Donnelly, David O’Connor, Liam Morrison and Eoin McGillicuddy, July 2022
Year: 2022
Non-road mobile machinery (NRMM) is a large category that until recently had not been widely researched in terms of its contribution of exhaust emissions to overall air pollution. The emissions from NRMM contribute significantly to air pollution. To lower emissions from NRMM and improve air quality, it is recommended that more data are collected from sectors such as rail, construction, and aviation, and from Transport Infrastructure Ireland. This research used the bottom-up approach of contacting NRMM owners and data holders to request data about their NRMM fleet and its fuel use.
Year: 2022
Authors: Maria McNamara, Hannah Binner, Eric Hynes and Luisa Andrade, June 2022
Year: 2022
This study aimed to generate an accessible evidence base to support the development of new policy on soil and to enable Ireland to meet its commitments to both national and EU soil strategies.
Authors: Maria McNamara, Hannah Binner, Eric Hynes and Luisa Andrade, June 2022
Year: 2022
This study aimed to generate an accessible evidence base to support the development of new policy on soil and to enable Ireland to meet its commitments to both national and EU soil strategies.
Authors: Éamonn Walsh, Lekha Margassery, Neil Coughlan, Roisin Broughton, Holger Kühnhold, Arno Fricke, Gavin Burnell, Maria O’Mahoney, David Wall, Paul Bolger, Niall O’Leary and Marcel A.K. Jansen, June 2022
Year: 2022
There are pressing economic and environmental concerns regarding the imbalance between resource consumption and regeneration. This research successfully demonstrated a paradigm shift in how wastewater is treated by developing a pioneering cascading system for valorisation of dairy wastewater, based on circular economy principles. It successfully developed an integrated system coupling microbial-based technologies of anaerobic digestion and aerobic dynamic feeding with duckweed cultivation.
Authors: Jennifer Attard and Tracey O’Connor, June 2022
Year: 2022
Food waste in Ireland has been estimated at 1.1 million tonnes per year, but this excluded farming, fishing and aquaculture (i.e. primary production), as there were no data on these sectors. This research has quantified and understood food waste in primary production and is a starting point in identifying areas that need addressing. The project has compiled various options for solutions available to tackle the specific food waste issues occurring in Ireland.
Authors: Anita McKeown, Lucy Hunt, James Murphy, Eleanor Turner and Rebecca White, May 2022
Year: 2022
The United Nations 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development require governments to take ownership and establish frameworks for the achievement of the 17 global goals. Ireland has mapped existing policies and programmes against each of the 169 SDG sub targets, setting out a roadmap for achieving the goals. CoDesRes developed and explored a series of proof-of-concept methods and from this created two toolkits. As interventions, the toolkits (community peer-to-peer learning and place-based STEAM education) localise the implementation of the SDGs and offer insights into adaptive opportunities to engage the public.
Call 2022-02, May 2022
Year: 2022
