PhD Seminar

Thursday, April 29, 2021 - 16:00
Via Teams

Please join us on April 29th at 4pm on Teams for our Seminar.  All Welcome. 

Name: Sudipto Bhowmik
Supervisor: Rowan Fealy, Lilian O’Sullivan, David Wall, Reamonn Fealy
Title: Soil fertility underpinning nutrient use efficiently for sustainability
This research seeks to understand how nutrient availability in agricultural soils varies with intrinsic properties of soil, topography, climate and agricultural land-use practices. The research will utilize a range of techniques to understand the relationship and identify the key drivers of soil fertility. The resultant models will be evaluated at a range of spatial scales and be employed to develop more sustainable strategies for managing agricultural soils, with the ultimate goal of achieving both soil and water conservation.
 
Name: Juliana Sassi Silva
Supervisor: Mary Gilmartin 
This project investigates public policies that enhance the presence of Real Estate Investment Trusts - REIT in the private rental sector and the impact of these policies on tenants' experiences. The tax regime for the operation of  REIT was introduced in  2013 (Department of Finance, 2019:4), aiming to liberate banks’ resources to invest in other economic sectors. Since the 1980s, the banks had replaced the state in providing mortgage to people. However,  following the 2008 crisis, mortgage provision has been decreasing along with homeownership. In a combined but inverted movement, the rental market has been growing to absorb those in need of a home. REITs are a way of bringing more properties to the rental market. Today, the two REITs that operate in the residential market own approximately 1.43% of national apartment stock (Department of Finance, 2019:10). There is growing literature on REITs worldwide, and the increasing reliance of tenants on the private rental market - the generation rent as some have been calling. However, its impact is still unfolding. This research aims to contribute to this discussion by 1) mapping REIT properties in the Dublin region, as well as the price range and profile of tenants; 2) interviewing stakeholder about the impact of REITs in the housing market and on private tenants.

Name: Brendan McGoldrick
Soils are the world's largest terrestrial carbon reservoir and are an integral part of the global carbon cycle. Farmland under permanent pasture, in temperate regions, generally contains large amounts of carbon. This type of land is also capable of extracting carbon from the atmosphere and locking it up in the soil through a process known as carbon sequestration. The research is seeking to assess, apply and evaluate the use of biogeochemcial models for simulating soil carbon sequestration over temperate grassland systems. A key outcome of the research will enable the agriculture sector to evaluate the impact of farm management practices on the rate of carbon sequestration and feed into the development of farmer decision support tools to underpin future agriculture and climate change policy.