Professor Niall McNamara

Niall is leader of the Plant-Soil Interactions Group at UKCEH Lancaster and is honorary professor at the University of Warwick. His group focusses on research relating to understanding and mitigating terrestrial GHG emission in natural and managed ecosystems.

A major focus Niall’s research is on understanding soil N₂O hotspots in crop life cycles including work on the effects of tillage, smart fertilisers, legumes and biochar application. He is funded as co-I on two BBSRC GGR projects (Enhanced Weathering, Accelerated Peat formation) and also co-ordinates a large workpackage in a multi-centre project (UKCEH, Rothamsted Research, BGS, PML, NCEO) that is exploring practical options for transitioning grasslands and croplands to Net Zero+. In SE Asia he conducts research to reduce the environmental impact of oil palm agronomy whilst also improving the livelihoods of smallholder farmers. His fundamental research is supported by two NERC standard grants. The first aims to understand the biotic and abiotic drivers of day and night variation in soil N₂O emissions. The second is exploring the significance of tree stem emissions of N₂O and CH₄ in dryland tropical forests.

Niall’s group uniquely operates a suite of field deployable instrumentation capable of automated measurements of GHG’s (CO₂, CH₄, N₂O) and related stable isotopic values (¹³C, ¹⁵N).