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Dr Catherine Farrell

Catherine graduated from University College Dublin with a BSc in Environmental Biology. Following her keen interest in restoration ecology, her PhD research (based in UCD’s catherinef Botany Department) focused on vegetation ecology and practical measures to restore industrial cutaway Atlantic blanket bog in the west of Ireland. This research then led to a ‘real world’ application and Catherine co-ordinated and monitored the restoration and rehabilitation of the former 6,500 hectare Bord na Móna (the Irish Turf Board) industrial cutaway site in County Mayo. Catherine then took up a wider role in Bord na Móna, extending her learnings to the full range of their 80,000 hectare landholdings across the midlands of Ireland. Working nationally, and as part of an international network of peatland restoration researchers and practitioners, she developed a number of projects on Greenhouse Gas emissions from drained peatlands, rehabilitated areas and restored bogs.

Catherine is a founding member of the Irish Forum on Natural Capital and works with businesses and nature agencies to bring the role of nature into broader discussions around ecosystem health, ecosystem services, natural capital and natural capital accounting, and sustainable environments.

Since June 2019, Catherine has been working on the INCASE project at Trinity College. INCASE (Irish Natural Capital Accounting for Sustainable Environments) is a multi-disciplinary collaboration between freshwater and terrestrial ecologists, geologists, economists, GIS analysts and accountants. The project is focused on applying the United Nations System of Environmental-Economic Accounting (SEEA) at a pilot scale in Ireland in order to inform how national scale natural capital accounting can be rolled out. The project is funded by the EPA. The research is exploring how integrated catchment management can dovetail with natural capital accounting of the range and condition of natural systems in catchments for better water quality (as reported under the Water Framework Directive). See: www.incaseproject.com

Project Supervisor: Prof. Jane Stout