Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit, Great Plains CESU | G18AS00094

Opportunity Information: Apply for G18AS00094

The Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit (CESU), Great Plains CESU grant opportunity (Funding Opportunity Number G18AS00094) is a U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) discretionary funding call issued under the Department of the Interior for a single cooperative agreement award. The program sits in the Science and Technology and other Research and Development category (CFDA 15.808) and is specifically limited to eligible CESU partners (the announcement lists eligibility as "Others" with details referenced in the full eligibility text). USGS anticipated making one award with a maximum federal funding amount (award ceiling) of $85,000. The opportunity was originally posted on August 6, 2018, with an original closing date of August 20, 2018.

The core purpose of the project is to develop and demonstrate a robust approach for mapping grassland forage production in a way that directly supports drought-adaptive management decisions. In practice, the work is meant to link satellite-based indicators of vegetation condition with weather and climate information so that changes in forage production can be quantified and attributed to drought. A central emphasis is on using historical drought periods between 2000 and 2015 as a testbed, with the goal of isolating how drought has affected forage production over time and across space. The mapping approach is expected to rely heavily on remote sensing, likely using MODIS vegetation indices, with a target spatial resolution of 250 meters or finer, which is consistent with MODIS-derived vegetation products commonly used for large-area monitoring.

The project is structured around three major deliverables or milestones. First, USGS expects a proof-of-concept study focused on a smaller regional area, culminating in a peer-reviewed journal article that demonstrates the feasibility and scientific validity of the forage production mapping method. Second, the successful method is expected to be scaled up to grasslands across the western conterminous United States, again with the expectation of producing a second peer-reviewed journal article tied to this broader application. Third, the effort is expected to move beyond retrospective mapping and toward actionable forecasting or near-real-time estimation. The announcement frames two acceptable paths for this final objective: either the team produces forage production maps under carefully selected weather scenarios that enable prediction of at least three possible summer outcomes based on current spring conditions, or the team develops a near-real-time approach that can generate an estimate of forage production for the growing season by late spring. In both cases, the intent is to make the work more operationally useful for drought planning, allowing managers to anticipate forage availability rather than only documenting it after the fact.

In addition to producing scientific publications and scalable methods, the opportunity explicitly signals workforce and capacity-building goals by noting that the project scope should be suitable for meeting key requirements of a PhD dissertation. At the same time, USGS indicates a practical end-state: if the research is successful, it could be transitioned into an operational drought-related product. Overall, the opportunity is a focused, applied research award aimed at building a defensible, satellite- and weather-driven forage production mapping capability that can explain past drought impacts and support forward-looking decisions for grassland management across the Great Plains and the broader western U.S. grasslands.

• The Department of the Interior, U. S. Geological Survey in the science and technology and other research and development sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit, Great Plains CESU" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 15.808.
• This funding opportunity was created on Aug 06, 2018.
• Applicants must submit their applications by Aug 20, 2018. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Each selected applicant is eligible to receive up to $85,000.00 in funding.
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 1 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: Others (see text field entitled Additional Information on Eligibility for clarification).

Apply for G18AS00094

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