Funding Wizard

This Program Announcement is issued under the provisions of section 104 of the Water Resources Research Act of 1984 (Public Law 98-242), as amended by Public Laws 101-397, 104-147, 106-374, 109-471, and 117–58. Section 104 of the Water Resources Research Act directs the Secretary of the Interior to administer program grants to Institutes established under the provisions of section 104(a) of the Act. Water Resources Research Institutes have been established in each of the 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Guam. The Institute in Guam also serves the Federated States of Micronesia and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. The Institute in Hawaii also serves American Samoa. The addresses of the 54 Institutes are available at https://water.usgs.gov/wrri/index.php. Responsibility for administration of the Water Resources Research Act Program has been delegated to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).

The U.S. Geological Survey, Southwest Biological Science Center (SBSC) is offering a funding opportunity to a CESU partner for research to design and implement monitoring of the microclimate within the Gemini Solar Project footprint to document the effects of solar panels on soil and vegetation, informing affects to plant communities and habitat suitability for the federally listed desert tortoise (Gopherus agassizii). Solar panels influence soil and vegetation communities by creating soil disturbance and altering microclimate, including temperature, hydrology, and albedo. These microclimate variables serve as controls over plant community dynamics, which form the basis of important food webs, including for the desert tortoise.

The US Geological Survey, Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center, is offering a funding opportunity to a CESU partner for research centered on improvements in land cover research by focusing on investigating and implementing state-of-the-art sampling and statistical strategies for accuracy assessment and area estimation, and the impacts of reference data uncertainties. This will be useful for characterizing the validity of USGS land cover change products such as National Land Cover Database (NLCD) and the Land Change Monitoring, Assessment, and Projection annual science products.

The Wetland and Aquatic Research Center (WARC) of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) is offering a funding opportunity to a CESU partner for research in a project using the following remote sensing technologies: doppler radar, automated radio telemetry, and audio recording units. Specifically, there is a need to determine avifauna densities, distributions, and diversity using remote sensing technologies mentioned above in relation to border barrier infrastructure along the US-Mexico border within the Lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas. This opportunity will provide an avenue for assisting with the data processing and analysis as well as development of spatially explicit decision support tools that can address fundamental needs of USGS management partners for border wall mitigation, current and future habitat acquisition, restoration, and conservations efforts targeted at flying animals.Research Objectives:Recent research conducted by USGS-WARC scientists and their partners has demonstrated the capacity of remote sensing tools to support management and conservation needs at multiple spatiotemporal scales. These demonstrations imply that remote sensing tools, especially when supplemented with field methods, can play a much larger role in providing science-based decision support tools for management partners, thereby creating a need to further develop the application and conservation value of USGS-WARC’s Avian Ecology and Conservation Research Group. Collaboration with University scientists is intended to provide a more fundamental perspective on the decisions that need to be addressed. In particular, more effort is needed to determine the densities, distributions, and identities of flying animals in relation to human development and associated artificial lighting at night. Remote sensing tools, such as doppler radar, radio telemetry, and audio recording units, have the ability to determine animal response to human development before and after construction or in areas with and without infrastructure, which provides an ideal study design to understand how animals may respond over time and space. For management partners, this would inform long-term management and conservation actions in relation to a border barrier infrastructure. These are the types of problems wish to study in a collaborative partnership.

Proposals are being accepted by the Mineral Resources Program (MRP), Earth Mapping Resources Initiative (Earth MRI) for State geological survey Mine Waste activities. Funds are made available to participating State geological surveys for activities focusing on mine waste inventory and characterization data compilation and acquisition, sampling and mapping efforts in support of ongoing Earth MRI efforts. In FY 2023, approximately $5M is available for allocation to USGS Mine Waste cooperative agreements through a competitive proposal process. All MRP funds must be obligated by Sep 30, 2023.

The USGS is offering a funding opportunity to a CESU partner for research on the effects of forest fires and moose browsing on boreal forest vegetation dynamics.

The USGS Wyoming-Montana Water Science Center (WY-MT WSC) is offering a funding opportunity to a CESU partner for research titled, “Tongue River 2100: Future Tongue River streamflow estimates to enable Northern Cheyenne data-driven water management and planning.” This research will provide future streamflow estimates for the Tongue River (MT) to inform Tribal water management and decision making. Research Objectives: To work with Tribal and community project partners to understand their future streamflow data needs, to translate those needs into scientific analyses and products, and to communicate project results back to project partners.

The USGS is offering a funding opportunity to a CESU partner for research to provide Computer modeling to support Lake Erie nutrient adaptive management. This CESU project will provide support for up to one year. The goal of this work is to provide modeling analysis as part of and in support of the Lake Erie Data and Modeling Working Group of Adaptive Management Task Team, under the GLWQA Nutrient Annex. This CESU will complement ongoing work being conducted by USGS to understand the interaction of nutrient, invasive species, and other stressors in the Great Lakes and provide scientific leadership to the Adaptive Management Task Team. CESU and USGS partners will work closely through the Lake Erie Data and Modeling Working Group to select an appropriate set of ecosystem models; identify data requirements; acquire, harmonize, and synthesize data needed for models; identify modeling scenarios; and compare modelled results to one another and to in-lake outcomes. Additionally, the CESU partner will provide model calibration, validation, and test runs of agreed upon scenarios using their in-house ecosystem model(s). Results from these efforts will extend abilities to predict Lake Erie response to nutrient management and concurrent ecosystem stressors and support adaptive management of this system.

The USGS is offering a funding opportunity to a CESU partner for research that will improve user support, technical outreach, and data management tools for the North American Bat Monitoring Program (NABat).The objectives for this work are to facilitate submission, management, and dissemination of data and information from NABat.

U.S. Geological Survey’s (USGS) Great Lakes Science Center (GLSC) is offering a funding opportunity to a CESU Partner for research on “Exploring past and present spawning habitats for native fishes in the Great Lakes to inform restoration and conservation.” Coregonines (the whitefishes and ciscoes) are the primary focus of this research. Coregonine populations have generally declined over the past century throughout the Great Lakes, with some species (or forms) now considered extirpated, and some considered extinct. A science-based approach for conserving and/or restoring these culturally, ecologically, and economically important fishes has been developed by USGS alongside Tribal, First Nations, state, provincial, and university partners. The plan is referred to as the Coregonine Restoration Framework, herein abbreviated the CRF, and the planning phase of the CRF is currently underway. A primary component of the CRF is to conduct a gap analysis to compare historical and contemporary populations and habitats. This work involves collecting and analyzing historical and contemporary data, developing predictive models to map areas of coregonine occurrence and spawning locations, and comparisons of historical and contemporary maps and data to inform managers about optimal locations to focus restoration and/or conservation efforts. Aim to create a significant partnership between USGS and CESU researchers to address questions of mutual interest, such as how to use modeling and mapping techniques to (1) learn where certain coregonine species once occurred, (2) learn where they occur now, and (3) compare and delineate areas where conservation and restoration activities can occur based on managers’ needs (i.e., areas where spawning habitat exists yet coregonines are now gone, areas where a species has persisted over the decades and still occurs, areas where a species did not historically occur but has since been found). The outcomes of this research are of interest to scientists and resource managers of federal, state, Indigenous, and provincial agencies who are charged with ensuring sustainable fishery resources.