Funding Opportunities
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is soliciting applications from eligible applicants to manage the Healthy Watersheds Consortium (HWC) Grant Program to continue efforts to accelerate and expand the strategic protection of healthy freshwater, estuarine, and marine ecosystems and their watersheds across the country. This grant program will advance the protection of healthy watersheds by supporting an array of projects to build watershed protection capacity and support actions to protect healthy watersheds.
The United States Department of the Interior (Department), Bureau of Reclamation’s (Reclamation) Snow Water Supply Forecasting Program (Program) aims to improve the skill of water supply forecasts via enhancing snow monitoring through the deployment of emerging technologies to complement existing monitoring techniques and networks. This new program was authorized in December 2020 by P.L. 116-260, Sec. 1111, Snow Water Supply Forecasting Program Authorization Act. The program was authorized for FY 2022 -FY 2026.Reservoir operations and related water management decisions rely on estimates of current and future water availability. These estimates depend on technologies to observe basin conditions such as snowpack. In many Western basins, snowpack and subsequent snowmelt runoff constitutes a significant portion of the annual water supply. Accordingly, monitoring snowpack is of great interest to water managers and water users alike. Traditionally, basin snowpack information is based on a sparse network of observing stations across large watersheds. These networks provide high quality information at station locations but extrapolating that information to an entire watershed is a challenge. This challenge, in large part, motivates the Program.As such, the NOFO invites proposals from eligible applicants that are invested in and capable of demonstrating emerging or deploying existing snow monitoring technologies and/or use of snow monitoring data to enhance water supply forecast skill. Considering this and the Act’s emphasis on partner agency coordination, strong applications will have partnerships with water management and forecasting entities to facilitate transfer of knowledge, foster use of data in forecasts, and evaluate utility of information for informing water management decisions. This supports Department of the Interior priority of addressing the drought crisis by providing water managers the best available information to inform the management of this scarce and critical resource.In Phase I, applicants submit technical proposals in the required format and length as specified in Section D.2.1.4 Project Proposal as well as with the required content. Submission to Phase I is required for Phase II consideration.Reclamation’s application review committee (ARC) will select a set of highly qualified applications from Phase I to move to Phase II of the application process. Submission to Phase I is required for Phase II consideration. If the selected applicants are not present for Phase II, their proposals are automatically disqualified from proceeding further and will be ineligible for an award. Phase II will entail a 30-minute virtual (web meeting) project/proposal “pitch” presentation to a review panel, followed by 20 minutes of question and answer with the review panel. Those selected to advance to Phase II will be notified of the presentation requirements and logistics with a minimum 4 weeks’ notice.
The purpose of this solicitation is to fund applied research to increase California’s hydropower generation through precipitation enhancement (cloud seeding). Research funded by this solicitation will foster cost-effective, robust approaches to manage anticipated needs for zero-carbon, fast-ramping resources in the context of a rapidly evolving energy system and climate change.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, as part of its Science to Achieve Results (STAR) program, aims to promote scientific progress towards the understanding of coastal ecosystem resilience by seeking applications proposing research to 1) characterize, quantify, and define indicators or metrics of resilience for various types of coastal ecosystems, especially those ecosystems that have climate mitigation and adaptation and/or blue (ocean-stored) carbon sequestration potential and 2) develop methods and approaches to advance economic valuation of resilience benefits provided by coastal ecosystems.
The Bureau of Land Management Arizona Rangeland Management Program administers grazing for more than 155 million acres of public land. This includes, but is not limited to, such things as inventorying, controlling, and managing noxious weeds and invasive species; improving rangelands through grazing management, vegetation restoration treatments, and grazing management structures; and soil resource management. Coordination with land managers and other stakeholders is conducted to complete priority soil surveys, ecological site descriptions, and on-the-ground projects to improve soil stability and reduce erosion. Appropriate management of rangeland and soil resources also support actions and authorizations that include, but are not limited to, such things as endangered and special status species recovery, grazing of domestic livestock, recreation, forest management, hazardous fuels reduction, and post fire rehabilitation. This program supports the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act PL 117-58, Section 40804(b) Ecosystem Restoration and Section 40803 Wildland Risk Reduction. This program supports projects funded through the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), Sections 50221 Resilience, 50222 Ecosystems Restoration and 50303 DOI.
Funding Opportunity Goals:
1. Conserving and restoring lands to combat climate change: promote climate resilient landscapes by focusing on maintaining/improving land health through appropriate livestock grazing use, management of invasive species and noxious weeds, and managing soil resources.
2. Restoring legacy disturbances: Support restoration of landscapes improving rangelands through grazing management on the ground projects including vegetation restoration treatments, and grazing management structures, and soil resource management.
3. Decision support for adaptive management: To better support land management decisions regarding grazing and other range management treatments, soil management, and invasive species, the BLM will place a priority on collecting data through the use of consistent, comparable, and common indicators, consistent methods, and an unbiased sampling framework which will allow for analyses that are repeatable and comparable across a region, and decisions based on science and data that are legally defensible.
The Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) Arizona Aquatic Resources Program protects and restores riparian and wetland areas, aquatic habitats, and water resources to provide functioning ecosystems for a combination of balanced and diverse uses including fish and wildlife, and for the long-term needs of future generations. Policy guidance for the Program ensures that public land management based on multiple use and sustained yield provides healthy and productive riparian, wetland, and aquatic habitat, achieves land health standards, and considers society’s long-term needs for healthy watersheds. The issues the Program addresses are diverse and include restoration, habitat fragmentation and degradation, drought resiliency, water availability, and aquatic invasive species. Program staff provide professional expertise and policy guidance to BLM managers, Federal, State, Tribal, and local governments, and non-governmental partners on these issues, and implement the best management practices to minimize or avoid impacts to water resources, riparian and wetland areas, and aquatic habitats on public lands. This program supports projects funded through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, Section 40804 (b) Ecosystem Restoration. This program also supports projects funded through the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), Sections 50221 Resilience, 50222 Ecosystems Restoration and 50303 DOI.
Funding Opportunity Goals :
1. Ensuring water availability to sustain healthy riparian and wetland areas and aquatic habitats.
2. Restoring degraded water resources, riparian and wetland areas, and aquatic habitats, with a focus on process-based approaches and promoting riverscape health.
3. Advancing decision support models, and the inventory, assessment, and monitoring information that feeds such models, to inform the protection of remaining high quality habitats and the strategic restoration of degraded systems.
The Green and Resilient Retrofit Program (GRRP) is authorized and funded by Section 30002 of the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, (Public Law 117-169) (the “IRA”), titled “Improving Energy Efficiency or Water Efficiency or Climate Resilience of Affordable Housing.” The program seeks to amplify recent technological advancements in utility efficiency and energy generation, bring a new focus on preparing for climate hazards by reducing residents’ and properties’ exposure to hazards, and protecting life, livability, and property when disaster strikes. GRRP is the first HUD program to simultaneously invest in energy efficiency, energy generation, and climate resilience strategies specifically in HUD-assisted multifamily housing. All of the investments under the GRRP will be made in affordable housing communities serving low-income families in alignment with the Administration’s Justice 40 goals. HUD is offering GRRP funding through three separate cohorts designed to meet the different needs of HUD’s assisted multifamily portfolio.
Round One of the GRRP consists of three cohorts of awards, implemented through three parallel Notices of Funding Opportunity (NOFOs):
The Elements NOFO provides modest awards designed to add proven and highly impactful climate resilience and carbon reduction measures to the construction scopes of in-progress recapitalization transactions.
The Leading Edge NOFO provides funding to Owners aiming to quickly meet ambitious carbon reduction and resilience goals without requiring extensive collaboration with HUD.
The Comprehensive NOFO provides funding to initiate recapitalization investments designed from inception around deep retrofits, focused on innovative energy efficiency and greening measures, renewable energy generation, use of structural building materials with lower embodied carbon, and climate resilience investments.
Comprehensive Awards are designed for the widest range of properties, including those that have not yet developed a recapitalization plan. To the greatest extent feasible, these approaches will: Substantially improve energy and water efficiency, including moving properties toward net zero, zero energy ready, or zero over time energy performance; Address climate resilience, including synergies that can be achieved between efficiency and resilience investments; Enhance indoor air quality and resident health; Implement the use of zero-emission electricity generation and energy storage; Minimize embodied carbon and incorporate low-emission building materials or processes; and Support building electrification.
The Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant (EECBG) Program provides $8.8 million to 774 eligible Tribes, including Alaska Native Regional and Village corporations. EECBG Program funding can be used as seed funding that can grow into bigger projects, assisting communities to meet energy efficiency goals. Tribes can use EECBG Program funds to upgrade buildings, install renewable energy equipment, or develop climate and clean energy plans. The EECBG Program also has a voucher application option, intended to streamline the application and management process.
Over the last 34 years, NCF has awarded nearly half a billion dollars in funding to support movements, organizations, and individuals pursuing justice for people and the planet. We embrace a ‘totality of assets’ approach to impact, meaning we leverage the full power of the foundation’s financial and non-financial resources to support our partner’s solutions.
The Network launched the Landscape Conservation Catalyst Fund Program in 2019 to accelerate the pace and practice of collaborative landscape conservation and stewardship across the United States.
The Catalyst Fund couples financial support through a competitive grant process with an in-depth Peer Learning and capacity building experience. The Fund makes strategic investments in strengthening the collaborative capacity of place-based, community-grounded Landscape Conservation Partnerships. These investments are intended to better positions Partnerships to achieve long-term conservation and stewardship success, building in landscapes across the country the enduring collaborative infrastructure and social capital needed to address systems-level challenges like the biodiversity, climate change, and environmental injustice crises.
A portion of the Fund is dedicated to supporting Indigenous leadership in landscape conservation. Indigenous-led Partnerships focused wholly on sovereign tribal lands and/or focused on advancing and conserving Indigenous interests, territories, and rights across a broader defined landscape are encouraged to apply.