Karen Daly

Research Interests

I am a Principle Research Officer in Environmental Science and Head of Department at Environment, Soils and Land Use (ESLU) Department set within the Crops Environment and Land Use Programme (CELUP) at Teagasc.  The ESLU research programme spans a range of thematic areas including:

• nutrient use efficiency and alternative bio-based fertilisers
• water quality
• land use change
• greenhouse gas emissions
• soil health
• soil microbiology
• carbon farming
• farmland biodiversity
• proximal sensing.

My own research group focuses on soil health, water quality, proximal sensing and spectroscopy, operating across multiple scales, namely: mechanistic processes for soil health at profile scale; the fate and transfer of pollutants at catchment scale; regional and national scale risk assessment for soil health and water quality, spectral sensing and isotope tracing.

My research includes themes such as sustainable circular bio-economies and sustainable food systems examining the impact of bio-wastes on soil health using phosphorus isotope tracing techniques to model the turnover of phosphorus in soils.  The proximal sensing and spectroscopy programme combines benchtop/portable spectroscopy with machine learning to predict environmental variables and indicators of soil health, specifically; soil fertility, organic matter, soil carbon sequestration, particle size and phosphorus supply potential.

Current Projects

• PRISM: Proximal sensing for near real-time monitoring of soil organic carbon pools for climate smart management (DAFM Ireland-New Zealand joint funding programme)
• Predicting soil carbon sequestration potential using MIR and chemometrics. Teagasc Walsh Scholarship Fund
• Terra Soil: Developing agri-environmental indicators from Tellus spectral libraries and archives. Research Agreement with GSI.
• REFLOW ITN Valorising bio-waste for agricultural soils and assessing the impact on soil health. EU H2020 Research and Innovation Programme
• SARMENTI Smart sensing techniques for soil and air monitoring EU H2020 Research and Innovation Programme.
• SENSUS: Sensing nutrients for sustainable food systems DAFM RSF.
• RoadRunner: Visual and risk assessment of nutrient loss from farm roads EPA funded.
• WaterMarke: Water quality risk assessment at farm scale. EPA funded.
• The application of XRF for soil fertility: Teagasc Walsh Scholarship Fund

Education

• 2024  Graduate Certificate in Strategic Leadership, DCU Business School
• 2015  FETAC Level 6 Certificate in Managing People
• 2006  World Reference Base training in soil classification, Joint Research Council
• 2000  Ph.D. Environmental Science, Trinity College Dublin
• 1993  M.Sc. Synthetic Organic Chemistry
• 1990  B.A. (Hons) Chemistry (2.1), Trinity College Dublin

• Publications