Great Lakes Remote Sensing | F18AS00083

Opportunity Information: Apply for F18AS00083

The Great Lakes Remote Sensing opportunity (Funding Opportunity Number F18AS00083) is a U.S. Department of the Interior, Fish and Wildlife Service cooperative agreement tied to the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative (GLRI). It supports an ongoing effort that began under the 2017 GLRI framework and is focused on making remote sensing a practical, operational tool for tracking environmental change across the entire Great Lakes Basin. The central purpose is to routinely monitor, map, and detect changes over time, with special emphasis on multi-temporal mapping of Great Lakes habitats and wetlands using newer, integrated remote sensing approaches.

In practical terms, the project is about building a consistent change-mapping program rather than producing a one-off map. The work targets habitats and wetlands, which are critical to Great Lakes ecosystem health and restoration planning, and it emphasizes temporal analysis, meaning repeated mapping over multiple time periods to identify trends, gains and losses, and patterns of change. The description highlights the use of integrated remote sensing technologies, implying that the program is expected to combine multiple data sources or sensor types (for example, different satellite platforms or complementary remote sensing methods) to improve coverage, accuracy, and usefulness of the resulting products.

Administratively, this notice is not a typical open grant competition. It is a notice of intent to make a single-source award (or awards under a single cooperative agreement framework) without competition to two specific institutions: the University of Minnesota and Michigan Technological University. The agency cites the Departmental Manual justification (505 DM 2.14, B.1, B.2, and B.4) to explain why a competitive process is not considered practical. The reasoning provided is that these partners already have the specialized experience, established accomplishments, and the required technical resources to carry out the work, particularly because the project involves peta-scale datasets and the high-performance computing capacity needed to process them and generate the intended end products. In other words, the scale of the data and computing is large enough that only organizations with proven infrastructure and expertise can efficiently deliver the operational mapping outputs.

The opportunity is categorized as discretionary funding and uses a cooperative agreement as the funding instrument, which typically indicates substantial involvement by the agency in coordinating, guiding, or collaborating on the work compared to a standard grant. The activity area is listed under natural resources, science and technology, and other research and development, and the CFDA number is 15.662. While the listing shows eligible applicants as "Others" with additional eligibility details referenced elsewhere, the notice makes clear that this specific action is intended as a single-source collaborative effort with the two named universities, rather than an open call for new applicants.

Key timing and funding details include a creation date of March 2, 2018, an original closing date of March 9, 2018, and a statement that there is no application process for this funding opportunity, reinforcing that it is an internal notice associated with a directed award. The award ceiling is listed as $122,000, with an expectation of one award. Overall, the effort is framed as a continuation and expansion of prior work, designed to merge and build on the existing strengths of the University of Minnesota and Michigan Technological University into a unified, basin-wide, multi-temporal habitat and wetland change mapping program for the Great Lakes.

• The Department of the Interior, Fish and Wildlife Service in the natural resources, science and technology and other research and development sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Great Lakes Remote Sensing" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 15.662.
• This funding opportunity was created on Mar 02, 2018.
• Applicants must submit their applications by Mar 09, 2018 There is not an application process for this funding opportunity.. (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 $122,000.00 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 F18AS00083

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