| Lead Researcher | Project Title | Project Description |
|---|---|---|
| Dr. Salem Gharbia (ATU) | Reviewing, Experimenting, and Co-Designing Action Pathways for Ireland’s Climate Action Plans | RE-CAP examines how Ireland’s 31 Local Authority Climate Action Plans are being implemented in practice across four key sectors: Energy, Transport, Land Use & Nature, and Water & Coastal Management. The project creates a national sectoral performance dashboard and governance map to enable benchmarking, peer learning, and targeted policy support. It combines this national review with an in-depth case study in Sligo to understand what enables or hinders collective climate action. Through co-creation methodologies, RE-CAP will co-design a practical Collective Climate Action Toolkit to support real-world delivery, coordination, and public engagement. All outputs will be open access and designed to inform the next cycle of climate planning in Ireland. |
| Prof. Ainhoa González, (UCD) | Artificial Intelligence Supported Expert Prioritisation of Significant Effects: Streamlining Strategic Environmental Assessment Scoping and Improving Effectiveness (ScopeSEA) | This project aims to identify sector-specific significant environmental effects which should be prioritised in Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA), to subsequently develop good practice scoping recommendations supported by a sector-specific effects significance toolkit. It is anticipated that the project will make a significant contribution to improving the effectiveness not only of SEA scoping, but of the SEA process as a whole. In particular, the project’s outcomes will enable SEA practitioners to focus on significant issues, streamline assessments, reduce time and resources, and enhance the clarity and meaningfulness of SEA Environmental Reports (ERs). This, in turn, will support purposeful mitigation and monitoring, contribute to delivering more effective assessments and decisions, and improve environmental outcomes. |
| Róisín Moriarty, (UCC) | Exploratory analysis of the effect of climate change on forest carbon stores in Ireland (ENDURANCE) | This project is an exploratory analysis of the effects of climate change on forest carbon stores in Ireland. The aim is to identify vulnerabilities of forest carbon stores and assess how these vulnerabilities put the delivery of Ireland’s carbon budgets at risk. This will allow the examination of the risks of relying on terrestrial carbon stores for carbon dioxide removal. This project also aims to enhance collaboration to ensure valuable data resources are fully utilised to better understand the evolution of terrestrial carbon stores in Ireland in the face of climate change. |
| Vaios Moschos, (UG) | Air pollutant Evolution and Regulatory Outcomes through TRend EvaluatioN and Diagnostics (AEROTREND) |
AEROTREND will deliver Ireland’s first nationwide, harmonised assessment of long-term trends in short-lived climate pollutants—such as black/organic carbon, ozone, methane and key aerosol components—by combining high-quality measurements from coastal and urban monitoring sites with satellite data and emissions inventories. Using advanced statistical trend methods, the project will quantify how both background pollution and high-pollution episodes have changed over recent decades, and assess how these changes relate to air-quality regulations and climate variability. It will also identify the main sources (domestic, marine/biogenic and transboundary) and the pathways by which pollutants reach Ireland using chemical fingerprinting, source apportionment and transport analysis. The resulting open datasets and policy-focused outputs will support Ireland’s Clean Air Strategy and Climate Action Plan and strengthen evidence for EU and international reporting. Co-funding provided by Met Éireann |
| Heather T. Lally, (ATU) | ALFIE Project - Assessing Landscape Fragmentation Impact on Ecosystems | The ALFIE project aims to provide knowledge and understanding on the key policies and practices currently applied to the quantification of habitat fragmentation on the island of Ireland, and to develop fragmentation and connectivity metrics and maps enabling spatial prioritisation |
| Dr. Karen Ray, (UCC) | Determining environmental impacts on landscape - understanding landscape sensitivity in assessment of strategic plans and programme | This project explores the scope for the effective incorporation of landscape values, sensitivity, and capacity for change into decision-making and strategic assessment at different scales. It examines how a system for a deeply values-based classification of landscape sensitivity can be developed nationally, for both urban and rural landscapes, to improve assessment of environmental impacts on landscape of plans and programmes. The outputs will inform the development of future national planning statements, actions and measures, and will include sample maps, guidance documentation, and toolkits. This will be used to provide a consistent approach to SEA monitoring of national plans and programmes for landscape and cumulative effects and to identify data required for this to streamline environmental assessments. This 18-month project involves the teaching team at the Department of Planning and the hiring of a research assistant, as well as the running of workshops with key users of the landscape. |
| Dr. Arash Beiranvand, TU Dublin) | INTEGRID-RISE: INTEgrated GRID Resilience for Infrastructure Sustainability & Emergencies | INTEGRID-RISE develops a multi-layered, integrated model of an urban area’s distribution power grid and transportation infrastructures to better understand how these interconnected systems perform under climate stress. Using Dublin as a representative case study, the project assesses the resilience and reliability of the distribution power grids and transport networks against climate-related hazards such as flooding, heatwaves, and storms. Based on these assessments, INTEGRID-RISE delivers evidence-based planning studies and recommendations to guide future infrastructure upgrades and expansions. The project aims to support more resilient, reliable, and climate-ready urban infrastructure systems in Ireland. |
| Dr. Vibhutesh Kumar Singh, (SETU) | F-gases and Chemicals Human-in-the-loop Artificial Intelligence Surveillance System Design (F-CASS) | F-CASS utilises the combined expertise of a trans-disciplinary supervisory team, uniting an AI/ML software developer, an environmental chemist, and a computational biologist to address complex regulatory challenges. We are designing a proof-of-concept Human-in-the-Loop software toolkit to support the detection of restricted chemicals, such as F-gases in the products. The system will cross-reference public product descriptions against expert-verified regulations, the system identifies non-compliant items. The architecture operates on a strict privacy-by-design model, ensuring that only product-related data is processed in real-time and never stored. |
| David Styles, (UG) | BIO-INSIGHT (BIOeconomy INdicators for foreSIGHT) | BIO-INSIGHT will enumerate environmental and socio-economic key performance indicators to inform the deployment of sustainable and resilient bio-based value chains. The project team will connect existing life cycle assessment and land use models to track biogenic carbon and nutrient cycles from land through the bioeconomy for a wide range of cascading value chains and biorefineries. This will provide new insight into the types of biomass use pathways that can effectively drive the transition to a climate-neutral, circular bioeconomy. |
| Liz Cole, (UG) | Investigating National Policy Impacts on Atmospheric Climate Targets | INPACT brings together a cross-disciplinary team working across the fields of atmospheric science, economics and econometrics and data science to survey historical national policy interventions spanning economic, agricultural and environmental policies since the 1990s. The policy impact will be evaluated in terms of successful implementation and achieving intended outcomes, and the effect of policy on greenhouse gas emissions, our atmospheric composition and climate will be evaluated. |
| James McGrath, (MU) | PRIORITISE: Prevention through Integrated Outcomes: Reducing radon Impacts on Irish Society and Economy | The PRIORITISE project combines building science, health data, and economic modelling to assess the effectiveness of different radon prevention measures and evaluate their cost implications in the Irish context. It updates national estimates of the broader economic and healthcare impacts associated with radon exposure. By forecasting how many lung cancer cases could be prevented under various prevention strategies, the project helps identify the most cost‑effective actions to protect public health. |
| Dr. Patrick Quille, (MTU) | GreenCOD | The purpose of GreenCOD is to investigate green methodologies for the routine measurement of chemical oxygen demand in labs. The Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD) represents the level of organic pollution in water bodies and thus is a critical analytical parameter for water quality assessment that is carried out on samples from a variety of sources. The current accepted method in Ireland for determining COD utilises several toxic and carcinogenic substances, including strong acids and mercury sulphate in a digestion mixture, together with potassium chromate as an oxidising agent. The current method, therefore, represents a significant risk to lab workers while also presenting an enormous environmental and financial burden in their correct disposal. The GreenCOD project proposes to assess a range of alternative methods for measuring the COD of a variety of samples from different sources with the ultimate aim of recommending a replacement test(s) together with associated methods. |
| Féidhlim McGowan, (UG) | Local Examples of Cooperation and Harnessing Experimental Insights to Lower Emissions (LE CHÉILE) | Meeting ambitious climate targets depends on collective action that is fair, legitimate, and widely supported, yet the factors that enable such cooperation vary across contexts and are not well understood in complex settings. LE CHÉILE investigates cooperative action at the level of individuals, communities, and institutions to achieve climate goals in Ireland, in line with priorities set out in the Climate Action Plan 2024. Drawing on research from behavioural economics, psychology, and cognate disciplines, LE CHÉILE combines comparative case studies with experimental research to examine how trust, leadership, heterogeneity, and the framing of problems and goals shape willingness to cooperate. By integrating these strands of evidence, the project aims to deepen understanding of the conditions under which effective cooperation for climate mitigation and adaptation can be promoted and sustained. |
| Dr. Indiana Agnieszka Olbert, (UG) | Joint probability of multi-driver floods along Ireland’s coastline (JointFloods) |
Floods are amongst the most common and deadly weather-related natural disasters. There is enough evidence to quantify environmental, economic and social impacts of floods and to suggest that the climate change conditions will cause even more severe impacts in the future. Implementing flood adaptation measures requires good understanding of the dynamics of compound coastal-fluvial floods and future flood risks. The JointFloods project aims to develop a set of tools and resources for a risk assessment associated with compound floods and provide an in-depth understanding of mechanisms of floods around the coast of Ireland. The outputs of this project can be used to inform national-to-local level adaptation planning and facilitating informed decision-making for flood risk management. Co-funded by Met Éireann and the Office of Public Works and Met Éireann |
| Dr. Swarna Jaiswal, (TUD) | ReLoop: System Design and Policy Roadmap for B2B and Trade Packaging in Ireland | ReLoop focuses on designing scalable, policy-aligned reusable packaging systems for Ireland’s business-to-business and trade sectors, with a particular emphasis on food and beverage distribution. Led by Dr. Swarna Jaiswal at TU Dublin, the project team includes Dr. Amit Jaiswal, Dr. Nikolaos Valantasis Kanellos, Prof. Jesus Frias, Dr. Lucia Morales, and Mr. Fintan Moran, bringing expertise across circular economy policy, packaging systems, logistics, techno-economic assessment, and regulation. The project addresses Ireland’s reliance on single-use transport and secondary packaging and supports compliance with upcoming EU Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation reuse targets. ReLoop will deliver practical reuse models, a national implementation toolkit, and a policy roadmap to accelerate Ireland’s transition to a circular packaging economy. |
| Saeed Hamood Alsamhi, (UG) | Dataspace for Empowered Monitoring of Peatland Stability and Climate Resilience in Ireland | SMART-Sinks is an AI-powered environmental dataspace designed to protect and enhance Ireland’s peatlands, which cover over 20% of the country and represent largest terrestrial carbon sink. SMART-Sinks integrates satellite imagery, in-situ sensors, climate models, and land-use records into a FAIR-compliant platform to enable real-time monitoring of peatland vitality and carbon flux dynamics. Using explainable AI and predictive analytics, SMART-Sinks will forecast degradation risks, methane emissions, and biodiversity loss under future climate scenarios. The decision-support system will provide early warning alerts and restoration scenario simulations for policymakers and land managers. By addressing fragmented monitoring and limited predictive capability, SMART-Sinks supports evidence-based peatland restoration, ecosystems and climate resilience in Ireland. |
| Dr. Jenny Lawlor, DCU |
Ethanol Emissions and Whiskey Fungus from Irish Whiskey Maturation: Environmental Monitoring, Risk Assessment, and Regulatory Implications (EREG) |
Ireland’s rapidly expanding whiskey industry releases ethanol vapours during spirit maturation, contributing to non-methane volatile organic compound (NMVOC) emissions and the growth of “whiskey fungus” (Baudoinia spp.) on nearby surfaces. This project will quantify ethanol emissions from whiskey maturation facilities, investigate the environmental distribution and biological characteristics of whiskey fungus, and assess potential human health and ecological risks. By integrating emissions estimation, environmental monitoring, and risk assessment with a review of national and international regulatory approaches, the project will provide an evidence base for informed policy and licensing decisions. The research will deliver practical guidance, open datasets, and mitigation options to support environmental protection while enabling sustainable growth of the Irish whiskey sector. |