Influence of Fire and forest restoration | P18AS00104

Opportunity Information: Apply for P18AS00104

The grant opportunity titled "Influence of Fire and forest restoration" (Funding Opportunity Number P18AS00104) is a National Park Service cooperative agreement focused on understanding how wildfire and active forest restoration affect watersheds and aquatic ecosystems at Valles Caldera National Preserve (VALL). The Preserve is in the middle of a major landscape restoration effort funded through the Department of the Interior Resilient Landscapes program. That restoration is designed to bring back more natural fire regimes across forest and grassland watersheds by reducing unnaturally high fuel loads and reintroducing fire in a controlled way. The main on-the-ground actions include large-scale forest thinning to remove excess fuels, followed by prescribed and managed fire intended to further reduce remaining fuels and support a return to more frequent, lower-severity fire patterns that the ecosystem historically experienced.

A central concern driving the funding is that fire, whether from severe wildfire or from prescribed burning, can change how watersheds behave. The opportunity highlights that fires can alter water quality as well as the amount and timing of stream discharge. In particular, when watersheds burn at high severity, they can become prone to post-fire flash flooding, which can transport ash, sediment, and debris into streams, destabilize channels, and degrade habitat. VALL provides a real-world case where these risks have already played out: the Preserve was impacted by two major, uncharacteristic wildfires, the 2011 Las Conchas fire and the 2013 Thompson Ridge fire. Following these events, multiple post-fire flash floods occurred and caused documented damage to fisheries and aquatic macroinvertebrate communities in severely burned watersheds. Although fish and invertebrate populations are currently recovering, the Preserve's continuing restoration program, including prescribed fire, could still influence these biological resources, making careful monitoring essential.

The purpose of the proposed work is to monitor and characterize how aquatic systems across VALL respond to both wildfire impacts and ongoing restoration activities, and to describe the pace and trajectory of recovery over time. In practical terms, this means tracking changes in stream conditions and aquatic communities in watersheds with different fire histories and management treatments, with an emphasis on linking fire severity and restoration actions to measurable outcomes such as water quality, flow behavior, and biological condition (especially fish and aquatic macroinvertebrates). The end goal is to produce defensible, on-the-ground information that helps park managers understand which watersheds are most vulnerable, how long recovery tends to take, and how restoration activities can be implemented while minimizing unintended harm to aquatic ecosystems.

Administratively, this is a discretionary funding opportunity offered by the Department of the Interior, National Park Service, using a cooperative agreement instrument, which typically implies substantial involvement by the federal partner during the project. The funding activity category is Natural Resources under CFDA 15.945. Eligibility is limited to public and state-controlled institutions of higher education, aligning the project with academic capacity for field monitoring, data analysis, and long-term ecological assessment. The opportunity anticipated a single award with a funding ceiling of $211,255. The posting was created on March 28, 2018, with an original closing date of April 6, 2018.

• The Department of the Interior, National Park Service in the natural resources sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Influence of Fire and forest restoration" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 15.945.
• This funding opportunity was created on Mar 28, 2018.
• Applicants must submit their applications by Apr 06, 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 $211,255.00 in funding.
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 1 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: Public and State controlled institutions of higher education.

Apply for P18AS00104

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