Creating Adaptation Strategies for Parks Using Enduring Features | P18AS00701

Opportunity Information: Apply for P18AS00701

Creating Adaptation Strategies for Parks Using Enduring Features (Funding Opportunity Number P18AS00701) is a National Park Service project focused on improving how parks understand and plan for ecological change, especially in forests and other natural systems facing multiple stressors. The core idea is to strengthen an existing landscape-scale assessment that was built largely from remote sensing and other broad spatial datasets. While that earlier work incorporated measures of sensitivity and adaptive capacity across large areas, this project is meant to "ground-truth" those results using detailed, on-the-ground monitoring information collected through the National Capital Region Network (NCRN). By tying satellite and landscape modeling to field plot measurements, the project aims to make the conclusions more reliable and more directly usable for park decision-making.

A major deliverable is clearer, more explicit definitions of how sensitive different park ecological systems are to stressors, based on assessments of ecological integrity over time. Instead of relying only on generalized indicators from remote sensing, the project uses fine-scale NCRN monitoring plot data to evaluate actual conditions and trends in the field. That includes leveraging a substantial time series: about 15 years of NCRN and other eastern Inventory and Monitoring (I&M) Network data. The goal is to improve both the sensitivity side (how strongly systems respond to stressors) and the adaptive capacity side (what features of the landscape help systems persist, recover, or adjust).

On adaptive capacity, the project specifically emphasizes enduring physical and landscape attributes that can buffer ecosystems against change. It looks at factors such as topographic complexity (for example, variation in slope, aspect, elevation, and microclimates), local connectivity (how easily organisms, genes, and ecological processes can move across the landscape), and forest patch size (which can influence resilience to fragmentation, edge effects, and disturbance). Incorporating these elements is intended to help parks identify places that may function as refugia or long-term strongholds, as well as areas that may need more active management to maintain ecological integrity.

Technically, the work is described as a spatial framework that evaluates ecological system integrity through time while also incorporating additional stressors beyond what was previously modeled at broad scales. The framework is anchored in the parks' vegetation classification and mapping products, which include 113 plant communities grouped into 24 ecological systems. Using those mapped ecological systems as the organizing units, the project integrates plot-level monitoring data to refine models of forest response to stressors that operate at landscape and regional scales. In practical terms, this means managers get a better link between what they can observe on the ground in specific park units and what larger-scale models suggest about exposure and vulnerability.

Administratively, this announcement is not a competitive grant solicitation. It is a Notice of Intent to Award, meaning no applications are accepted. The National Park Service issued it to provide public notice that it intended to fund the work without competition as a modification to an existing task agreement under an existing cooperative agreement with NatureServe (P15AC01330). The funding mechanism is a cooperative agreement under the Department of the Interior, National Park Service, in the Science and Technology and other Research and Development activity category (CFDA 15.944). The eligible applicant category listed is 501(c)(3) nonprofits other than institutions of higher education, and the expected structure is a single award with a ceiling of $135,000. The notice was created on September 17, 2018, with an original closing date of September 27, 2018, reflecting the administrative timeline for the notice rather than an open application period.

• The Department of the Interior, National Park Service in the science and technology and other research and development sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Creating Adaptation Strategies for Parks Using Enduring Features" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 15.944.
• This funding opportunity was created on Sep 17, 2018.
• Applicants must submit their applications by Sep 27, 2018 This is a Notice of Intent to Award, not a request for applications and no applications will be accepted under this announcement. The purpose of this funding opportunity announcement is to provide public notice of the National Park Serviceaposs intention to fund this project without competition as a modification to an existing task agreement under an existing cooperative agreement with NatureServe(P15AC01330).. (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 $135,000.00 in funding.
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 1 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: Nonprofits having a 501(c)(3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education.

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