Geography (Peer-reviewed publications)

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Profiling efforts to establish voluntary stewardship in a river catchment
(Geographical Society of Ireland, 2024-09-10) Weiner, Donna; Gabbett, Liz; Goggin, Anne; Harrington, Tom; Dalton, Catherine
River water quality in Ireland is in decline. The Maigue River in County Limerick exemplifies this decline with degrading chemical and ecological water quality. The most significant pressures are agriculture, and to a lesser extent, hydromorphology, urban and domestic wastewater systems. Because human activity is a main source of pressure on riverine systems and natural habitats, part of the solution rests in increasing local community interest, involvement, and cooperation in water and catchment management initiatives. This study profiles efforts made to foster engagement with residents of the Maigue River catchment. A devastating pollution event precipitated the formation of a community water group that provided initiatives to increase public involvement in events and projects focusing on river water quality and biodiversity. Most of the initiatives would not have been possible without the individual attributes of local participants, an organisational structure (Maigue Rivers Trust), and champion (Project Officer), and supporting funds, training, and resources. These bottom-up efforts demonstrate that voluntary engagement supported by core funding helped further the public participation aims of conservation legislation (Water Framework Directive and River Basin Management Plans) and expanded catchment stewardship. However, future sustainability, with meaningful improvements in water quality, requires time, a functioning structure, and adequate resources, as part of a coherent integrated catchment management approach, if trusting relationships with local communities are to be developed and maintained.
Lakes in Ireland: mirrors of change
(Independently published, 2024) Dalton, Catherine (ed); De Eyto, Elvira (ed); Jennings, Eleanor (ed)
Water is the defining element of Ireland’s natural heritage. The mild, wet climate shapes the landscape, endowing the island with an extraordinary number of lakes. This book showcases these lakes, emphasising the importance of aquatic biodiversity, water quality, and environmental health. Unfortunately, many iconic and less well known lakes face threats from pollution, biodiversity loss, and climate change. Key academics and professionals share knowledge and research experiences on Lakes in Ireland – Mirrors of Change in twenty-two chapters. The book highlights the urgent need for radical changes in land use and the prioritisation of lake protection. Key knowledge gaps are identified and chapter authors provide fifty recommendations for research, policy change, and coordinated action to safeguard Ireland’s lakes. Aimed at practitioners, students, decision-makers, and the public, this peer-reviewed, open-access e-book is freely available on the Marine Institute Open Access Repository, thanks to generous sponsors, in particular the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Marine Institute and Mary Immaculate College.
Towards the development of all-island spatial databases
(Regional Studies Association, 2007) McCafferty, Des; Van Egeraat, Chris; Bartley, Brendan; Creamer, Caroline
Age constraints on Precambrian glaciations and the subdivision of Neoproterozoic time
(Subcommission on Neoproterozoic Stratigraphy, 2005) MacGabhann, Breandán Anraoi
A review of age constraints on the Neoproterozoic glaciations suggests that at least four distinct glacial events can be recognised, three of which appear to be global. These are (in order from oldest to youngest) the Kaigas (poorly constrained to between 770 and 735 Ma), Sturtian (well constrained to c. 715 - 680 Ma), Marinoan (well constrained to 660 - c. 635 Ma), and Gaskiers (extremely well constrained to c. 585 - c. 582 Ma). Excellent correspondence of some U-Pb dates suggests that these glaciations may be of practical use in global chronostratigraphy, a principle previously recognised by the IUGS Terminal Neoproterozoic Subcommission in the placement of the GSSP for the base of the Ediacaran System at the base of a Marinoan “cap carbonate”. It is here suggested that the newly constituted IUGS Ediacaran Subcommission follow this principle by searching for appropriate sites and horizons to place GSSPs (a) for the base of the Upper Series of the Ediacaran System (for which the name Vendian is suggested) immediately above a “Gaskiers” diamictite, (b) for the base of the Upper Series of the Cryogenian System at the base of a “Sturtian” diamictite, and (c) for the base of the Cryogenian System at a level between the top of the “Kaigas” diamictites, and the base of the “Sturtian” diamictites. This would confine the four glaciations and the subsequent rise of metazoans to a separate Series each, and combines the two greatest glaciations in Earth history, the Sturtian and Marinoan glaciations, as the Cryogenian System. While there may be reasons to consider other names, the widespread use of the names “Sturtian” and “Marinoan” in the literature suggests the Subcommission should consider these names for the Lower and Upper Series of the Cryogenian respectively.
Non-mineralised discoidal fossils from the Ordovician Bardahessiagh formation, Co. Tyrone, Ireland
(Royal Irish Academy, 2010) MacGabhann, Breandán Anraoi; Murray, John
Four non-mineralised fossils from the Ordovician Bardahessiagh Formation, near Pomeroy, Co. Tyrone, have been examined for the first time following their recovery from a temporary trench dug in 1992, and are here described as Seputus pomeroii gen. et sp. nov. These are discoidal impressions with up to 120 radial ridges extending from a central ring to a sharply defined margin, and they are tentatively interpreted as rotadiscid eldonids. The fossils are preserved as moulds and casts in a medium-grained quartzose sandstone bed, which is densely packed with corals, trilobites, brachiopods and delicately preserved echinoderms, probably representing an event bed on an outer shelf or upper slope setting. The non-mineralised fossils are likely to represent a para autochthonous assemblage of benthic organisms, preserved by early diagenic mineralisation in anaerobic conditions produced by the decay of organic matter entrained within the bed, a mode of preservation broadly similar to that of non-mineralised fossils from the Ediacaran System. The preserved discs are believed to represent a tough exterior more resistant to decay than the (unknown) remainder of the organism.
Cryptic disc structures resembling Ediacaran discoidal fossils from the lower Silurian Hellefjord Schist, Arctic Norway
(Public Library of Science, 2016) MacGabhann, Breandán Anraoi; Kirkland, Christopher L.; Kirkland, Brian L.; Daly, Stephen
The Hellefjord Schist, a volcaniclastic psammite-pelite formation in the Caledonides of Arctic Norway contains discoidal impressions and apparent tube casts that share morphological and taphonomic similarities to Neoproterozoic stem-holdfast forms. U-Pb zircon geochronology on the host metasediment indicates it was deposited between 437 ± 2 and 439 ± 3 Ma, but also indicates that an inferred basal conglomerate to this formation must be part of an older stratigraphic element, as it is cross-cut by a 546 ± 4 Ma pegmatite. These results confirm that the Hellefjord Schist is separated from underlying older Proterozoic rocks by a thrust. It has previously been argued that the Cambrian Substrate Revolution destroyed the ecological niches that the Neoproterozoic frond-holdfasts organisms occupied. However, the discovery of these fossils in Silurian rocks demonstrates that the environment and substrate must have been similar enough to Neoproterozoic settings that frond-holdfast bodyplans were still ecologically viable some hundred million years later.
Disc-shaped fossils resembling porpitids or eldonids from the early Cambrian (series 2: stage 4) of western USA
(PeerJ, 2017) MacGabhann, Breandán Anraoi; Lieberman, Bruce S.; Kurkewicz, Richard; Shinogle, Heather; Kimmig, Julien
The morphology and affinities of newly discovered disc-shaped, soft-bodied fossils from the early Cambrian (Series 2: Stage 4, Dyeran) Carrara Formation are discussed. These specimens show some similarity to the Ordovician Discophyllum Hall, 1847; traditionally this taxon had been treated as a fossil porpitid. However, recently it has instead been referred to as another clade, the eldonids, which includes the enigmatic Eldonia Walcott, 1911 that was originally described from the Cambrian Burgess Shale. The status of various Proterozoic and Phanerozoic taxa previously referred to porpitids and eldonids is also briefly considered. To help ascertain that the specimens were not dubio- or pseudofossils, elemental mapping using energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS) was conducted. This, in conjunction with the morphology of the specimens, indicated that the fossils were not hematite, iron sulfide, pyrolusite, or other abiologic mineral precipitates. Instead, their status as biologic structures and thus actual fossils is supported. Enrichment in the element carbon, and also possibly to some extent the elements magnesium and iron, seems to be playing some role in the preservation process.
Status for Irish lake typologies using palaeolimnological methods and techniques (IN-SIGHT)
(Environmental Protection Agency, 2007) Dalton, Catherine; Taylor, David; Leira, Manel; Jordan, Phil
Past, current and future interactions between pressures, chemical status and biological quality elements for lakes in contrasting catchments in Ireland (ILLUMINATE)
(Environmental Protection Agency, 2010) Dalton, Catherine; Jennings, Eleanor; Taylor, David; O'Dwyer, Barry; Murnaghan, Sarah; Bosch, Kim; de Eyto, Elvira; Sparber, Karin
Delivering integrated catchment management through the bottom-up approach: a critical analysis
(Environmental Protection Agency, 2016) Dalton, Catherine; Ballinger, John; O’Doherty, Travis; Igoe, Fran; O’Keeffe, Brendan; Riney, Bryan
Managing our water is essential to support life and protect our ecosystems. Integrated catchment management= (ICM) is about bringing water issues, people and organisations together at the right scale in order to achieve effective management solutions that benefit all stakeholders. It incorporates what legislation says we need to do (i.e. from the top down) with the aspirations of the community (i.e. from the bottom up). It integrates environmental, economic and social issues within a catchment into a coherent management strategy. Expert guidance can help communities to participate in the development and implementation of an agreed vision of sustainable land and water use for their catchment.
Climate history through the holocene at Lochnagar, Scotland
(Royal Irish Academy, 2001) Dalton, Catherine; Birks, Harry John Betteley; Brooks, Stephen J.; Cameron, Nigel G.; Derrick, Shirley; Evershed, Richard P.; Battarbee, Rick W.; McGovern, A.; Peglar, S.M.; Scott, J.A.; Thompson, Julian R.
Integrating observed, inferred and simulated data to illuminate environmental change: a limnological case study (Pre published)
(Royal Irish Academy, 2016) Dalton, Catherine; Jennings, Eleanor; O'Dwyer, Barry; Taylor, David
Effective management of aquatic ecosystems requires knowledge of baseline conditions and pastvariations in stressors and their effects in order to mitigate the impacts of future variability and change. This study utilizes combined monitoring, sedimentary and hindcast computer model data to reconstruct and examine the eutrophication history of a lake in southwest Ireland over a c.60-year period and uses computer models to simulate future responses in water quality as a result of projected changes in land use and climate. The study site, Lough Leane, has major national and international importance, but is currently regarded as ‘at significant risk’ of not meeting the water quality objectives of the EU Water Framework Directive. Palaeolimnological reconstructions and hindcast modelling results confirmed that current eutrophication in the lake dates at least to the 1950s, and particularly from the 1970s. When used to simulate future conditions the same computer models indicated that climate change will likely worsen the current situation. The approach described, synthesising data from a range of sources, can inform future-proofing of lake management plans and objectives by enabling the accommodation of future changes in catchment and climate conditions.
The palaeolimnology of Lough Murree, a brackish lake in The Burren, Ireland
(Royal Irish Academy, 2013) Dalton, Catherine; Cassina, Filippo; de Eyto, Elvira; Sparber, Karin
Lough Murree, a rock/karst barrier lagoon, is superficially isolated from the sea and seasonal variations in lake water level reflect precipitation and groundwater variation. Lake salinity influenced by subsurface saline intrusions, occasional barrier overwash together with precipitation and groundwater inflow, leading to poikilohaline conditions. Palaeolimnological reconstructions Murree support the supposition that the lagoon was once superficially connected to the sea around the mid-nineteenth century. Physical, chemical and biological proxies suggest an evolution to freshwater conditions. Uncertainties about the timing of the transition persist because of an unresolved sediment chronology. The isolation of Murree from the Atlantic Ocean has promoted the formation of dense charophyte beds composed of lagoonal specialist species, which are able tolerate large variations in salinity.
Natural capital: an inventory of Irish lakes
(Geographical Society of Ireland, 2018) Dalton, Catherine
Lakes are important components of our landscape and along with networks of rivers and streams provide a range of important ecosystem services and natural capital. Estimates of lake numbers, particularly small lakes, have generally been under-represented historically as they did not appear on most printed maps. Accurate calculation of lake numbers is necessary in determining realistic estimates of their collective contribution to provisioning, regulating, supporting and cultural ecosystem services. A summary of the available lake data is vital to help shape research efforts to determine catchment and lake system contributions to biogeochemical processes, for example, carbon burial, pollution, filtration, and biodiversity. This is particularly important in the context of global climate change. In light of the most recent global inventory of lakes and an increasing recognition of aquatic ecosystem services, this paper summarises the publicly available spatial data on the lake population for the island of Ireland. A range of datasets of variable spatial resolution exists for the Irish ecoregion, which suggest varying lake populations of 360, 908 and 976 lakes greater than 0.1 km2 surface area. Moreover, the most detailed dataset includes 12,205 lakes greater than 0.00001 km2 in the Republic of Ireland (RoI). Additional complexities exist with access to lake data for Northern Ireland (NI). This creates confusion in efforts to valorise lake natural capital for the Irish ecoregion. This summary of the Irish lake population provides context for the selection of lakes for future study and highlights the variable nature of the spatial data.
Contrasting pelagic plankton in temperate Irish lakes: the relative contribution of heterotrophic, mixotrophic and autotrophic components, and the effects of extreme rainfall events (Pre-published version)
(Taylor & Francis, 2015) Dalton, Catherine; Sparber, Karin; de Eyto, Elvira; Jennings, Eleanor; Lenihan, David; Cassina, Fillipo
The mobilisation of energy from allocthonous carbon by heterotrophic bacterioplankton can be proportionally more important than autotrophic production in humic lakes. Moreover, increasing levels of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) in many aquatic systems linked to increases in precipitation, which in turn may be related to changing climate, means that this heterotrophic component of the foodweb may play an increasing role in the overall transfer and production of energy, particularly within peatland catchments. While such catchments are very common in the temperate northwest Atlantic regions of Europe, studies describing the seasonal dynamics of the heterotrophic, mixotrophic and autotrophic components of their aquatic foodwebs are rare. In this study, the biomass of these pelagic components was enumerated over one year in two oligotrophic lakes, both situated in peatland catchments in the west of Ireland, but with contrasting DOC concentrations. Bacterial biomass dominated the pelagic foodweb of the more humic lake, Lough Feeagh, while autotrophic phytoplankton biomass was greatest in the clearwater lake, Lough Guitane. The biomass of potentially mixotrophic flagellates was also slightly larger in the Lough Guitane, while phagotrophic ciliate biomass was comparable between the two lakes. An extreme precipitation event led to a significant increase in bacterial biomass, while simultaneously depressing autotrophic production for several months in the humic lake. Extreme precipitation in the clearwater lake also depressed autotrophic production, but did not give rise to significant increases in bacterial biomass. This quantification of autotrophic, mixotrophic and heterotrophic components provides vital a first step in understanding how pelagic communities contribute to net ecosystem productivity, and thus how Irish peatland lakes may be affected by projected climate changes.
Keeping track mapping and tracking vulnerable young people
(The Policy Press, 2001) Canny, Angela; Green, Anne E.; Maguire, Malcolm
The notion of social exclusion, and the need for its existence and effects to be addressed and combated by government social policy, has gained great prominence in recent years, as illustrated by the establishment and work of the Social Exclusion Unit (SEU). One of the issues of particular interest and concern to policy makers and practitioners has been the fortunes of ‘vulnerable’ young people, especially those who become detached from ‘mainstream’ youth transitions. Such transitions have tended to become longer, more ambiguous or uncertain and more diverse as a plethora of different pathways into the labour market and other domains of adulthood have emerged.
Geographical mobility family impacts
(The Policy Press, 2003) Canny, Angela; Green, Anne E.
This study examines the family impacts of geographical mobility, with particular emphasis on employer-initiated relocation. It is hoped that the results from this research will add to the understanding of the impacts on families of geographical mobility, and so will help to guide future policies. It is in the interests of employers and employees that the costs and benefits of relocation and other types of geographical mobility are fully understood and the negative impacts minimised. A particular emphasis of this report is on families with children. However, reflecting the diversity of family and household types and changes over the life course, as well as the interests of employers and policy makers, the experiences and concerns of single, widowed and divorced people, and of childless couples, are not excluded from the study. Similarly, although the main emphasis is on relocation – involving a change in residence as well as workplace, examples of the substitution of commuting for relocation, on a shorter- or longer-term basis, are Introduction explored also.
Environmental Justice, Childhood Deprivation and Urban Regeneration.
(Royal Irish Academy, 2014) McCafferty, Des
The notion of environmental justice is connected to the ways in which the goods (and conversely the 'bads') of society are distributed, both socially and spatially. The concept has been most strongly developed in the US, where a distinctive environmental justice movement grew in the early 1980s out of protests against the large dump for polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in the predominantly poor, black, and powerless community of Afton, in Waren County, North Carolina. As it developed, the protest movement identified inequalities in the exposure of individuals and communities to environmental risks and hazards as fundamentally. and profoundly, a justice issue, wherein already well-documented inequalities in the consumption of societies goods were being exacerbated by the concomitant inequalities in the distribution of the negative externalities arising from the production of those goods.
Regionalisation and the Geography of Poverty
(Poverty Today, 1999-04) McCafferty, Des
There are been considerable debate on regionalisation since the Government's decision to divide the country into two regions to maximize EU structural aid and the subsequent EU decision to confer Objective 1 status on a revised 13-county region. A fundamental question is whether such regional division best serves the national interest. It is clear, however, that the new regionalisation bears little relation to the spatial pattern of poverty in Ireland.
A Neighbourhood-level View of Area-Based Interventions
(Routledge Taylor & Francis Group, 2014) McCafferty, Des
The rapid increase in the numbers and ranges of state-funded area-based interventions (ABIs) in recent years has been documented in Chapter 6. These interventions and the associated fundings streams are mixed and matched in various ways at local level, as community and voluntary organisations, as well as local stationary bodies, deploy them to tackle poverty and social exclusion. In addition to the national programmes, described earlier, neighbourhood-level organisations are able to draw also on a number of localized measures, so that the picture of area-based interventions at the point of delivery is even more complex than at national level.

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