Notice of Intent: Identification and Assessment of Degraded Wetland Areas | P17AS00771

Opportunity Information: Apply for P17AS00771

The National Park Service (NPS), within the Department of the Interior, issued this discretionary funding opportunity as a Notice of Intent titled "Identification and Assessment of Degraded Wetland Areas" (Funding Opportunity Number P17AS00771). It is structured as a cooperative agreement under the natural resources funding activity category (CFDA 15.945). The opportunity was created on September 1, 2017, with an original closing date of September 10, 2017. The NPS anticipated making a single award, with a maximum federal funding level (award ceiling) of $60,000. Eligible applicants were limited to public and state-controlled institutions of higher education, signaling an intent to partner with universities or similar public academic entities that can provide technical expertise in wetland science, assessment, and restoration planning.

The core problem the NPS is trying to address is that many wetland systems within national park units have been damaged by earlier human activities that occurred before the lands were managed by the NPS, as well as by some historic NPS-era management practices. Examples described include excavation and other landscape alterations that changed hydrology, along with infrastructure such as park roads that intercepted or redirected surface water flows. These kinds of non-climate stressors can degrade wetland function by changing how water enters, moves through, and leaves a wetland, which in turn can affect vegetation, soils, habitat quality, and the wetland's ability to provide ecosystem services.

The opportunity also highlights that climate change is making these existing problems harder to manage. Shifts in water availability and timing are expected as mean annual temperatures rise and as droughts, storms, and precipitation patterns change. Because wetlands are fundamentally shaped by hydrology, even modest changes in temperature and precipitation can push already-stressed systems toward rapid ecological transitions, including the loss of key functions such as water storage, flood attenuation, water-quality improvement, carbon storage, and habitat support.

The grant’s practical goal is to support the identification and assessment of degraded wetlands so resource managers can target restoration work that reduces non-climate stressors. The basic restoration strategy described is to remediate or remove the legacy impacts from past land management actions, with the idea that returning wetland systems to more natural hydrologic and ecological conditions will improve resilience. In this context, resilience means wetlands are better able to resist damage from climate-driven extremes and better able to adapt without abruptly transforming into less functional states.

A key deliverable implied by the notice is the development of a prioritized list of wetland restoration opportunities within NPS units, paired with estimated restoration costs. This is framed as a decision-support tool: managers need to know which sites offer the best ecological return on investment, what the likely actions would be, and what those actions might cost. That prioritization is especially important because restoration funding can appear unpredictably. The notice explains that internal NPS funding sources (including programs such as IMR, NRSS, and WRD) may become available with limited advance notice, and that external opportunities can also arise, such as compensatory mitigation funds tied to impacts from other projects. Having a ready-to-use list of vetted, costed projects allows the NPS to respond quickly when these funding windows open, rather than losing time to initial scoping and assessment.

Overall, this opportunity is about building the planning and assessment foundation needed to accelerate wetland restoration in national parks: determining where degradation has occurred, understanding the causes (particularly hydrologic alterations), identifying restoration options that remove non-climate stressors, and packaging those opportunities into a prioritized, cost-informed set of projects that can be advanced as soon as funding becomes available.

• The Department of the Interior, National Park Service in the natural resources sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Notice of Intent: Identification and Assessment of Degraded Wetland Areas" 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 Sep 01, 2017.
• Applicants must submit their applications by Sep 10, 2017. (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 $60,000.00 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.

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