Professional summary
Brenda obtained a BSc (Hons) in Chemistry from the Pontificia Universidad Catolica del Peru in 2012, where she studied leaf litter decomposition in Amazon forest using chemical markers of decomposition. She then moved to Canada where she obtained a MSc in Geological Sciences at the University of British Columbia (2017) and a PhD in Geological Sciences from the same university (2022). The main focus of her PhD was to investigate the effects of land-use and land-cover change on carbon and water fluxes from tropical ecosystems using a network of eddy covariance towers.
Currently, Brenda is interested in quantifying the exchange of greenhouse gases (CO2, CH4, N2O), water and energy between the land and the atmosphere, and in studying how these fluxes and their drivers change with different landscapes and management practices. She started working at UKCEH in 2022, and she is specifically looking at fluxes from wetland ecosystems using a network of eddy covariance towers located across the UK. Through her research, she seeks to improve GHG and water accounting, provide data for validating remote sensing products and hydrological and land-surface models, and inform climate change mitigation strategies.
She is currently part of the MOTHERSHIP project and Changing The Environment Programme.
Hounshell, A. G., D’Acunha, B. M., Breef‐Pilz, A., Johnson, M. S., Thomas, R. Q., & Carey, C. C. (2023). Eddy covariance data reveal that a small freshwater reservoir emits a substantial amount of carbon dioxide and methane. Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences, 128(3), e2022JG007091
D'Acunha, B., & Johnson, M. S. (2019). Water quality and greenhouse gas fluxes for stormwater detained in a constructed wetland. Journal of environmental management, 231, 1232-1240.
D′ Acunha, B., Morillas, L., Black, T. A., Christen, A., & Johnson, M. S. (2019). Net ecosystem carbon balance of a peat bog undergoing restoration: integrating CO2 and CH4 fluxes from eddy covariance and aquatic evasion with DOC drainage fluxes. Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences, 124(4), 884-901.
D'Acunha, B., Lee, S. C., & Johnson, M. S. (2018). Ecohydrological responses to rewetting of a highly impacted raised bog ecosystem. Ecohydrology, 11(1), e1922.