14-15th April 2026
Hilary attended the annual conference for the Irish Group of the International Association of Hydrogeologists (IAH) in Tullamore on 14-15th April 2026 where she presented a poster on the REWET project. The poster highlighted ongoing research into the effect of drain blocking on water table level at the REWET sites.
18th March 2025
Hilary attended the 26th annual Irish National Hydrology Conference in Athlone on 18th March 2025 where she presented a poster on the REWET project. The poster highlighted results about the relationship between rainfall and water table level that were published in 2025 and ongoing research into the effect of drain blocking on water table level at the REWET sites.
27th April - 2nd May 2025
Both Dave and Hilary attended the European Geosciences Union's 2025 meeting in Vienna, showcasing their work on the ReWET project to a very well attended Peatlands Hydrology session on Thursday. The session was divided into two, with more a focus on in-situ monitoring in the morning, where Hilary presented her abstract on using dip wells and rainfall data to establish a rewetting suitability across a number of the ReWET sites.
The afternoon session then focused on remote and proximal sensing of peatland hydrology where Dave presented his abstract on how ground geophysics can help inform on the spatial impact of rewetting by open drain damming.
Both sessions were followed by a discussion with all presenters brought back up for a panel disucssion. Both Hilary and Dave were asked follow up questions from the audience.
Additionally, the ReWET team met with fellow Teagasc researcher Wenxuan Shi, who was at EGU presenting a poster on the ASPEN project. It was great to see so many talks related to peatlands across the week, with Irish research being well represented.
07th March 2025
This March the 2nd Carbon Farming Summit took place in Dublin. After the conference delegates were offered the opportunity to visit field sites around the country to see some of the on-going work in this area.
Prof. Owen Fenton, Dr. Dave O'Leary and Hilary Pierce from the REWET project, along with members of other Teagasc project such as ASPEN and D-TECT, welcomed 40+ delegates to one of the REWET sites in Co. Offaly where a short presentation was given on the overall project, the local hydrology, and geophyical methods that are being devloped to monitor the hydrological impact of rewetting effots.
This was followed by a Q&A session.
29th November 2024
This years IQUA Autumn Symposium was themed "Peatlands: Past, Present, and Future" and was held in the Department of Environment, Climate and Communications in Beggars Bush, Dublin.
It was organised in collaboration with Teagasc's ReWET project, the Geological Survey Ireland and IQUA committee. Dave O'Leary represented Teagasc on the organising committee alongside Gill Plunkett (Queens University Belfast) and Michelle McKeown (UCC).
This event included keynote talks from Prof Dave Beilman from Hawaii, Dr Kate Flood from UCD and Dr John Connolly from Trinity College Dublin, providing their unique insights into peatland science.
Hilary Pierce presented water table and rainfall analysis from the ReWET project to an audience of approx 50 people from all over the island of Ireland interested in the current state of peatland science. The Book of Abstracts is available here.
9th October 2024
This years Peatlands Gathering Event including a visit to one of the ReWET project sites on Gurteen Agricultural college.
35 attendees were met by Dave O'Leary and Hilary Pierce from the ReWET project, PhD Researcher Ian Clancy from the CARBSOL project and farm manager and lecturer at Gurteen college Ken Flynn.
The group was walked around the Gurteen ReWET site and shown several of the ongoing projects taking place including the Teagasc NASCO tower and GHG chamber measurment devices being studied by Ian, the drain blocking and water table monitoring from Hilary and several drone and ground geophysical equipment being used by Dave to map rewetting effect.
20th August 2024
The ReWET team was well represented at the IGC2024 which was held at the DCU Glasnevin campus in Dublin.
Hilary and Dave both presented at a session called "Old Peat, New Voices: Frontiers in Global Peatland from Early Career Researchers". Dave presented the final results of mapping the ReWET sites using airborne radiometric data, and Hilary presented her initial resutls on water table monitoring on bog and fen peat soil sites.
This is an impiortant session in the peat conference circuit which is run yearly by a global network of early career researchers known as the Peatland_ECR Action Team and this year the session was so- convened by Dave and other members of this ERC network.
The session was run in three parts, with the morning deticated to the social and cultural aspects of peatland research, followed by a mapping and hydrology session and finally closed with a session on peatland and climate.
The sessions were well attended throughout the day, sparking great question and discussions duirng the Q&A and coffee breaks. The day was finsihed with a social "Peat-Meet" at Fagans bar Drumcondra, where the networking continued
02nd July 2024
Prof. Owen Fenton met with the Gurteen College Board to talk about on-going REWET activities on their beef farm.
Here he presented the ReWET project to the Gurteen Board (mix of farmers, representatives from Teagasc, local community, co-ops, college groups etc). They were very interested in the project and the rewetting and the conversation lasted with me for 1 hour.
They were asking about D versus W and why had both been affected.
Importantly the board was shown the data that the project had collected before the rewetting occurred, showing:
1. That the water table comes right to the surface
2. How the water table drops substantially during summer.
They left very happy that rewetting is not causing problems with the farm, were very complimentary of the project and expressed an on-going willingness to engage.
16th - 15th April 2024
Hilary attended the International Association of Hydrogeologists (Irish Group) 2024 annual conference and was awarded the 2024 IAH Early Career Hydrogeology Award.
As the award recipient, she presented preliminary results from two of the study sites of the REWET project during an oral presentation session and displayed a poster on the project at the conference.
14th - 19th April 2024
Dave attended the international European Geoscience Union annual convention in Vienna. Here he presented a poster during the "Mapping, monitoring and managing northern and tropical peatlands session.
The session covered a range of methods from satellite remote sensing to drone and ground based sensors. Dave's poster on the radiometric method was well attended with several interesting discussions going on well beyond the alloted session time.
His poster featured two of the ReWET sites in the midlands of Ireland, showing how airborne radiometric data is able to map peatland extent, even in the presece of grassland as land cover.
7th/8th December 2023
ReWet Project PI's Dr Owen Fenton, Dr Pat Tuohy, Prof. Mark Healy and Dr Eve Daly, along with ReWet PostDoc Dr Dave O'Leary attended the Peatland Futures Workshop at University of Galway. This event was organised by Dr Terry Morley. The purpose of this workshop was to discuss the need for a Peatland Centre of Excellence.
The ReWet team took this opportuity to network with peatland experts from other governement agencies and academic and cultural institutions and projects. Later the team met for a rare social outing enjoying Galways social scene.
The next morning the ReWet team met in full, including PhD candidate Hilary Pierce and project technician Asaf Shnel, met in the University of Galway to discuss the current status of the project and the plans for the new year. A good discussion resulted in a division of labour between the project members to continue to collect and analysis the many forms of data that the team are using to inform the science of rewetting agricultural peatlands.
1st December 2023
Dave attended the autumn symposium of IQUA in Dublin. Here Dave presented his ongoing work on creating a national peatland map of Ireland, with a focus on the Transition zone between Peat and non-Peat soils. Two of the ReWet sites featured in this presenation as they are both considered transition zones areas. The presentation highlighted the work of ReWet in the context of national peatland research and are acting as valuable sites for the validation of this national peatland map.
30th November 2023
The ReWet Team welcomed Dr Flo Renou-Wilson from the Auger project to two of the ReWet sites. The purpose of the visit was to learn about categorising the peatland type under the Project Auger classification scheme. Dr Renou-Wilson is an expert in the peatlands of Ireland and her input to the ReWet project was invaluable. Cores were taken on 2 ReWet sites and the peat types were classified as a field based exercise. The lessons learned will be taken to all ReWet sites to aid in their classification
14th November 2023
Hilary Pierce presented a ReWET project poster at this national event in Tullamore as part of her PhD. This poster showcases some of the data that the ReWET project is collecting with high temporal and spatial resolution.
This data will allow the quantification of the impact of rewetting this soils in Ireland and can be used as example sites for the rewetting of other similar sites around the country.
REWET Poster_Hilary_Pierce_2023-11-09.pdf
7th November 2023
Dr Dave O'Leary attended the GeoScience 2023 event organsied by the Geological Survey, Ireland in Dublin Castle. This event showcases ongoing projetcs and work being conducted by the Geological Survey, Ireland and their partners. Before starting with Teagasc, Dave completed a GSI short call project on the creation of a national organic soil map using airborne Radiometric data. This poster shows how one of the ReWET sites is correcly identified as a peaty soil.
The ReWET project sites will be part of the validation of this national map, and consequently this national peatlands map can be used to identify similar sites around the country.
Left: Photo of Dave presenting this poster at the event.
Follow this link to view the Poster
21st - 23rd August 2023
Under the supervision of Dr Eve Daly, and accompanied by Dave and Hilary, two final year students visited two of the ReWET sites in order to conduct research for their final year projects. Their degree program is Earth and Ocean Sciences and is run from the University of Galway.
Both students focused on one ReWET site, each with differente research questions. On one site the focus was on mapping the transition between peat and non-peat soils. The second site was focused on investigating the depth of peat. Both students used Electrical Resitivity Tomography and gauge coring ground work alongside Drone Photogrammetry to build a high resolution topography map of each site. Data was loaded into QGIS for analysis.
This field work acts as an initial investigation into the use of Geophysical methods for mapping peat on these sites and will help to guide future field work on all sites.
10th/11th May 2023
Sixty participants attended the first day of the ‘Grassland Peat Agriculture Workshop’, which was hosted by the new Teagasc Climate Centre and the ReWet (Teagasc and University of Galway) project at Gurteen College in Tipperary on May 10th 2023 followed by a visit to NASCO and ReWet site located on site.
Presenters from Ireland, the UK and Denmark outlined the scientific, engineering and social issues facing the managment of grasslands on peat soils.
ReWet project members Dr Pat Tuohy, Dr Owen Fenton organised this meeting and Dr Eve Daly presented some of the methods the ReWet Team will be using to map peatland extend and monitor rewetting on the 12 ReWet sites across the midlands.
For more information click here . To see some of the presentations show click here.
2nd May 2023
Hilary Pierce presented a poster at the University of Galway School of Natural Sciences Reasearch day, showcasing the ReWET project and her role within it. This was an oportunity for researchers within the school to highlight the work that they are doing and the ReWET project poster proved to of interest to many people present
REWET Preview_Poster_Hilary_Pierce_2023-05-02.pdf