The Biogeoscience Research Group is supported by two major funding awards:

• Griffith Geoscience Award
• European Community's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) grant for the CoralFISH project

Griffith Geoscience Award

In 2007, the Biogeoscience Research Group at NUIG was granted 3.1 M Euro by the Griffith Geoscience Award Programme. The funding for the award was established in Ireland as part of the National Geoscience Programme 2007 – 2013 and the award is administered by the Geological Survey of Ireland. The award is used to support researchers within the Biogeoscience group at NUIG through funding of PhD and Masters studentships, postdoctoral fellows, and research costs. Within NUIG, the research program is administered by the Earth & Ocean Sciences discipline and the Ryan Institute. More details about the award can be found on the Geological Survey of Ireland's Griffith Geoscience Award web page.

CoralFISH project

The funding for the project was awarded through a European Community's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) grant (Large-scale integrating project - FP7). The project is titled: "Assessment of the interaction between corals, fish and fisheries, in order to develop monitoring and predictive modelling tools for ecosystem based management in the deep waters of Europe and beyond".

The total cost of the project is 10,826,222 euro with an EC Contribution of 6,499,906 euro. The project has 16 partners from 11 countries and is administered at NUI Galway by Anthony Grehan (Project Coordinator) and Sadhbh Baxter (Project Manager).

More details on the CoralFISH project can be found on the project website: http://www.eu-fp7-coralfish.net/

Biogeoscience Group Research

The multi-disciplinary study is concerned with marine and groundwater science. This includes understanding ocean hydrodynamics coupled with seabed processes (biogeochemistry, sediment transport, benthic habitats), hydrogeochemistry of karst groundwater zones on the west coast of Ireland, and naturally elevated concentrations of metals in Irish waters, sediments and biota.

Marine study

Seabed Projects: is providing information that is required for safe, economical, and sustainable development and monitoring of offshore activities (fishing, aquaculture, ocean energy, shipping, geological resources) in Irish waters.

CoralFISH Projects: is developing essential methodologies and indicators for baseline and subsequent monitoring of closed areas; integrating fish into coral ecosystem models to better understand coral fish-carrying capacity; evaluating the distribution of deepwater bottom fishing effort to identify areas of potential interaction and impact upon coral habitat; using genetic fingerprinting to assess the potential erosion of genetic fitness of corals due to long-term exposure to fishing impacts; constructing bio-economic models to assess management effects on corals and fisheries to provide policy options; producing habitat suitability maps both regionally and for OSPAR Region V to identify areas likely to contain vulnerable habitat.

Interactions between coastal and inland waters study

Karst Groundwater Projects: is providing information that will help to assess the impact of climate-driven flooding and sea-level rise on coastal communities and lead to better management of coastal karstic aquifer systems in Ireland.

Metals in the Irish Environment Projects: is improving our understanding of the occurance of naturally elevated levels of metals in Irish groundwater, surface water, sediments and biota; determining the linkages between geology, hydrogeology and aqueous geochemistry in the mobilisation of naturally occuring metals in the Irish environment.

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