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Project title

Carbon and catchments - Understanding the Impacts and Sources of Carbon Export from land to water

Primary Funding Agency

Environmental Protection Agency

Co-Funding Organisation(s)

n/a

Lead Organisation

University College Cork (UCC)

Lead Applicant

Michelle Marie McKeown

Project Abstract

C-UISCE is a collaborative, multidisciplinary project aiming to quantify the magnitude of carbon loss from land to water and the potential impacts of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) export on water quality and aquatic ecology. C-UISCE leverages expertise in hydrology, freshwater ecology, paleolimnology, environmental science and hydrological modeling to elucidate the spatiotemporal dynamics, drivers and risk factors for DOC export at catchment scale for the first time in Ireland. The four year project is multidimensional, providing frontier assessments of past, current and future DOC fluxes in Irish catchments. Utilising existing data from EPA-funded projects, coupled with a GIS-based risk mapping protocol, four catchments representing key soil, land use and cover typologies in Ireland will be selected for intensive investigation. High-frequency, continuous optical monitoring of DOC concentrations over two hydrological years, supported by monthly spatial sampling of ecological (macroinvertebrates) and physico-chemical parameters (DOC optical properties, carbon mineralisation and heavy metals) will identify critical DOC sources and their potential impacts on sensitive receptors. In-situ monitoring will be complemented by ex-situ laboratory-controlled manipulations using soil cores extracted from the catchments with DOC export evaluated under different (hydro)meteorological conditions to evaluate the impact of key climate change scenarios. Lake sediment core sampling and analysis will be used to retrodict past DOC baselines and elucidate chronologies of environmental change. All data produced through C-UISCE will be integrated into a state of the art spatially distributed model to estimate DOC fluxes from terrestrial to aquatic environments that can be extrapolated nationally, facilitating proactive and responsive land management and future-proofing environmental policies. C-UISCE addresses a critical lack of DOC baseline data in catchments where agriculture, forestry and hydromorphology are significant pressures, closing existing knowledge gaps. It is anticipated that C-UISCE will radically improve our conceptual understanding of the sources and processes influencing DOC export by developing high-quality carbon baseline data and models which will enable scientists, policy makers and land managers to safeguard our freshwater resources from the impacts of climatic and environmental change. All methods and models originating from the project will be open-access and suitable for use by local authorities in risk assessment, risk-based monitoring and in environmental source investigations. The work will have major societal impact, informing the design of monitoring and management programmes to strengthen preventative measures and identifying novel risk mitigation strategies that can be applied at catchment level.

Grant Approved

�599,997.02

Research Hub

Natural Environment

Research Theme

n/a

Start Date

31/03/2024

Initial Projected Completion Date

30/03/2028