About
35
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Introduction
I am a lecturer in Agricultural Science at Waterford Institute of Technology. My research interests include the sustainability of production on low-phosphorus soils, water quality, and soil structure. My background is in soil physics and hydrology.
My book 'Fieldwork Ready' will be released in Spring 2021!
Check out my appearance on '10 things to know about...Soil!'
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qcqPifl_bk
Additional affiliations
February 2019 - present
Position
- Research Officer
Description
- I am part of the CatchmentCARE project, developing the restoration of rivers in the cross-border region. My research includes mitigating phosphorus loss, harmonizing soil phosphorus indices, and evaluating interactions of structure and nutrient release.
January 2017 - February 2019
May 2016 - December 2016
Education
January 2013 - December 2015
June 2011 - December 2012
August 2007 - June 2011
Publications
Publications (35)
Agriculture exerts a variety of pressures on inland waters, including nutrient loss from fertilizers, sediment transfer, changes in hydromorphology, and diverse emerging contaminants. This chapter presents four case studies demonstrating some of the water quality issues related to modern agriculture, including nutrient pressures in an intensive gra...
Background
The use of soil phosphorus (P) tests and index systems provides a guide for agronomic nutrient requirements and is frequently also used to estimate risk of P losses to watercourses. Use of soil testing and management based on the results thereof is mandated in some regions. Several P extraction methods are available which evaluate differ...
Farmyards are commonly conceptualized as point sources of nutrient pollution nested within the wider agricultural landscape. However, within farmyards there are individual sources and delivery pathways, each of which is affected by a range of management practices and infrastructure. Rainfall mobilizes these nutrients, which may then be delivered to...
Increased fluxes of reactive nitrogen (Nr), often associated with N fertilizer use in agriculture, have resulted in negative environmental consequences, including eutrophication, which cost billions of dollars per year globally. To address this, best management practices (BMPs) to reduce Nr loading to the environment have been introduced in many lo...
Good field research is the driving force behind advancement in the agronomic, environmental, and soil sciences. Nevertheless, many undergraduate and graduate scientists have limited opportunity to develop hands-on experience before undertaking projects in the field. With Fieldwork Ready, Dr Sara Vero maps out the fundamental principles, methods, an...
It is often important to record time‐variable parameters such as weather, water discharge, nutrient concentrations, soil data, either because they are the main subject of the research. There are several different types of monitoring arrays, capable of measuring and recording weather, gas, soil moisture, solutes, or in‐stream parameters. This chapte...
Agriculture is an essential land use which supports human life via the production of food, fuel, and fiber. However, agriculture exerts pressures on watercourses due to nutrient loss from fertilizers, biocide drift, water extraction, and hydromorphologic changes. This chapter provides an overview of pressures exerted upon watercourses draining agri...
A historic lack of continuous stream nutrient monitoring at the catchment scale limits understanding of the effects of snowstorms. The most significant snowstorm since 1985, nicknamed "the Beast from the East", occurred in February-March 2018. High-frequency stream outlet monitoring in two close but hydrologically and agriculturally contrasting cat...
Farmyards present potential point sources of phosphorus loss to watercourses, affecting their ecological quality and attainment of environmental goals. Unlike many relatively simple point sources, farmyards are complex sub-systems within the wider agricultural setting, including individual runoff, management and infrastructure factors which influen...
High-resolution water quality monitoring indicates recurring elevation of stream phosphorus concentrations during low-flow periods. These increased concentrations may exceed Water Framework Directive (WFD) environmental quality standards during ecologically sensitive periods. The objective of this research was to identify source, mobilization, and...
This chapter explores the predominant land-based production systems in Ireland, specifically describing grassland, arable and forestry production. Grass is the most important agricultural crop in Ireland representing the main feed source for the livestock sector. Arable production represents a relatively small area, largely due to excess soil moist...
Ireland has a diverse physical landscape of upland and lowland inland waters represented by 13,200 km of river and 12,000 lakes framed by an estimated 3171 km of coastline providing a range of freshwater ecosystem services. The quality and quantity of water flowing through Ireland’s inland and coastal waters are determined by the complex interactio...
Historically, due to a lack of measured soil physical data, the quality of Irish soils was relatively unknown. Herein, we investigate the physical quality of the national representative profiles of Co. Waterford. To do this, the soil physical quality (SPQ) S-Index, as described by Dexter (2004a,b,c) using the S-theory (which seeks the inflection po...
The efficacy of water quality policies aiming to reduce or prevent nitrate contamination of waterbodies may be constrained by the inherent delay or “time lag” of water and solute transport through unsaturated (soil) and saturated (groundwater) pathways. These delays must be quantified in order to establish realistic deadlines, thresholds and policy...
Tungsten (W) is commonly employed as a non-toxic alternative to lead in a broad variety of industrial and military applications. However, correlations between environmental contamination through soil, water and airborne pathways, and biological effects such as epithelial damage, bioaccumulation, and trophic mobility, have led to its classification...
Landscapes typically deemed at risk from leached losses of nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) are those with short subsurface hydrologic time lags. Due to the short time it takes nutrients to move from a source to an area of concern, such sites are deemed perfect to test the efficacy of programmes of measures as management changes. However, a small su...
The responses of waterbodies to agricultural programmes of measures are frequently delayed by hydrological time lags through the unsaturated zone and groundwater. Time lag may therefore, impede the achievement of remediation deadlines such as those described in the EU Water Framework Directive (WFD). Omitting time lag from catchment characterisatio...
Core Ideas
Konza Prairie is a reference ecosystem for evaluation of current and former grasslands.
Hydrologic change includes climatic and geologic factors such as karstification.
Future research is needed to expand vadose zone knowledge.
Agricultural intensification and urbanization have greatly reduced the extent of tallgrass prairie across Nort...
During laboratory assessment of the soil water characteristic curve (SWCC), determining equilibrium at various pressures is challenging. This study establishes a methodological framework to identify appropriate experimental duration at each pressure step for the construction of SWCCs via centrifugation. Three common temporal approaches to equilibri...
Elucidation of when the loss of pollutants, below the rooting zone in agricultural landscapes, affects water quality is important when assessing the efficacy of mitigation measures. Investigation of this inherent time lag (tT) is divided into unsaturated (tu) and saturated (ts) components. The duration of these components relative to each other dif...
This study investigated the extent of soil damage caused by field traffic associated with different levels of soil moisture deficit (SMD). The hybrid SMD model was used for computing temporal patterns of SMD which can be accurately predicted for a range of soil types in Ireland. The aim of this study was to determine SMD threshold limits to traffic...
An appraisal of unsaturated zone conservative vertical travel times (Ttv) offers a more realistic timescale for expected water quality improvements in response to agricultural mitigation measures. Using actual soil profile data for such estimations is avoided as the standardised laboratory techniques involved are time consuming and laborious (e.g....
An appraisal of unsaturated zone conservative vertical travel times (Ttv) offers a more realistic timescale for expected water quality improvements in response to agricultural mitigation measures. Using actual soil profile data for such estimations is avoided as the standardised laboratory techniques involved are time consuming and laborious (e.g....
This project is entitled ‘Time lag: Extending achievement of European Union Water Framework Directive (EU WFD) water quality timelines beyond 2015 without implementation of additional programmes of measures.’ At present the focus of this project is on the elucidation of the first component of time lag i.e. vertical travel times through soil to the...
Compaction is regarded as one of the main causes of degradation of agricultural soils (Håkansson, 1986). The vulnerability of a soil to compaction depends on the soil moisture content (Earl, 1996). The aim of this study was to investigate the use of the hybrid soil moisture deficit (SMD) model (Schulte et al., 2005) as a proxy for volumetric soil w...
Soil compaction impairs soil performance by increasing its resistance to penetration, and by reducing fertiliser use efficiency and water infiltration. Moisture content is the main factor that determines the strength of the soil, and therefore it’s resistance to compaction. The purpose of this study was to examine the potential of a soil moisture d...
Soil compaction negatively affects soil productivity, fertiliser use efficiency and water infiltration. Due to the large weights involved vehicle traffic has the potential to cause substantial compaction of the soil. The extent of compaction is dependant on the strength of the soil, which is influenced by the soil moisture content. The purpose of t...
Soil compaction is a serious threat to the productivity of agricultural enterprises. While the increased size of farm vehicles has led to greater pressures exerted upon agricultural soils, it is the soil moisture content at the time of trafficking which remains the most significant determinant of the extent of deformation incurred. The purpose of t...
Questions
Questions (2)
I'm looking for field or lysimeter tracer studies (particularly using Bromide but other conservative tracers are more than welcome too) which are of long enough duration to capture not just breakthrough and peak concentration but also the final exit of the solute from the profile. Many studies list only the first two results, presumably due to the extensive times required for the tracer to totally exit the profile. I am particularly looking for studies within Ireland or England, and failing that the rest of the EU.
If anyone could suggest some papers that would be much appreciated! Thanks everyone.
When using pressure plates to measure the soil water retention curve errors in determining equillibrium can arise as a result of the non-linear release of water over time, particularly where undisturbed or intact samples are used. Does anyone have any experience of this? At what point did you consider equillibrium to have been attained?
