Summary of Findings - STRIVE Report 126: The Application of Geophysics to a Number of Threats to Irish Soil (Shane Donohue)
Summary: This research fellowship has applied a number of geophysical techniques in conjunction with conventional approaches, to a number of areas of concern in relation to threats to Irish Soils.
Recent developments in near-surface geophysical techniques, relating to advances in available computing power, have largely been based on developing systems that generate large, dense datasets efficiently. Some of these geophysical advancements have not previously been reported in the soils and agricultural literature, and this presents an opportunity to explore the novelty of these approaches. This project has applied a number of geophysical techniques in conjunction with conventional approaches to a number of areas of Irish concern to the EU Thematic Strategy (EC, 2006a) for Soil Protection and the proposed Soil Framework Directive (EC, 2006b). Some of this work is also relevant to the European Union (EU) Water Framework Directive (WFD; EC, 2000) and the Habitats Directive (CEC, 1992). Specifically, the areas that were selected for investigation as part of this project included: (i) agricultural soil compaction, (ii) wastewater contamination and (iii) failures in raised bogs.
