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The Nation faces an increasing set of water resource challenges. Aging infrastructure, rapid population growth, depletion of groundwater resources, impaired water quality associated with particular land uses and land covers, water needed for human and environmental uses, and climate variability and change all play a role in determining the amount of fresh water available at any given place and time. Water shortages and water-use conflicts have become more commonplace in many areas of the United States, even in normal water years. As competition for water resources grows-for crop irrigation, growing cities and communities, energy production, and the environment-the need for information and tools to aid water resource managers also grows. Water issues and challenges are increasing across the Nation, but particularly in the West, due to prolonged drought. These water issues are exacerbating the challenges facing traditional water management approaches which by themselves no longer meet today's needs. The U.S. Department of the Interior's (Department) WaterSMART (Sustain and Manage America's Resources for Tomorrow) Program establishes a framework to provide Federal leadership and assistance on the efficient use of water, integrating water and energy policies to support the sustainable use of all natural resources, and coordinating the water conservation activities of various Department bureaus and offices. Through the WaterSMART Program, the Department is working to achieve a sustainable water management strategy to meet the Nation's water needs.

The Water Infrastructure Improvements for the Nation Act (WIIN), P.L. 114-322, was enacted in December of 2016 to address water resources infrastructure that is critical to the Nation's economic growth, health, and competitiveness. Section 4009(c) of Subtitle J of WIIN includes amendments to Reclamation's Title XVI Water Reclamation and Reuse Program (Title XVI), established by P.L. 102-575 in 1992. Prior to the enactment of WIIN, funding for water recycling project construction could only be provided for congressionally authorized Title XVI projects. The WIIN amendments will allow new water recycling projects to be eligible to receive Federal funding Water recycling is an essential tool in stretching the limited water supplies in the Western United States. Title XVI water recycling projects develop and supplement urban and irrigation water supplies through water reuse, thereby improving efficiency, providing flexibility during water shortages, and diversifying the water supply. These projects provide growing communities with new sources of clean water while promoting water and energy efficiency and environmental stewardship and increase water management flexibility, making our water supply more resilient. Title XVI water recycling projects are an important part of the WaterSMART Program. For further information on the WaterSMART Program, see www.usbr.gov/WaterSMART.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) is pleased to announce the Funding Opportunity for Science Applications Region 4 2019-2020. The overarching objective of this funding opportunity is to support projects that advance the Southeast Conservation Adaptation Strategy (SECAS, http://secassoutheast.org/). SECAS is providing a more comprehensive and collective vision for conservation in the southeast United States by identifying the most important lands and waters that will meet the needs of fish and wildlife for future generations. The unique role of SECAS is to identify and support the steps necessary to regionally plan, implement, and evaluate actions that sustain habitat, mitigate threats, and adapt to future conditions. Guided by a conservation blueprint that represents the landscape conservation priorities of the conservation community, SECAS provides the comprehensive vision for a desired future conservation landscape that will guide decision making to generate more robust conservation outcomes between now and 2060 in the Southeast United States. Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance (CFDA) Number: 15.669, 15.670, or 15.678

The USFWS uses a science-based, adaptive framework for setting and achieving cross-program conservation objectives that strategically address the problems fish and wildlife will face in the future. This framework, called Strategic Habitat Conservation, is based on the principles of adaptive management and uses population and habitat data, ecological models, and focused monitoring and assessment efforts to develop and implement strategies that result in measurable fish and wildlife population outcomes. In addition, by leveraging resources and strategically targeting science to inform conservation decisions and actions, Landscape Conservation Cooperatives (LCCs) have created a network of partners working in unison to ensure the sustainability of America's land, water, wildlife and cultural resources. Financial assistance may be awarded for science projects and LCC-prioritized biological planning, conservation design and adaptive management projects to include: research; inventory design and implementation; monitoring; goal and priority setting associated with efficient and effective conservation; development of implementation strategies; and projects supporting all other FWS organizational efforts, including planning, establishment maintenance, and general business operations. Proposals will be reviewed and evaluated on a rolling basis subject to available funding.

The Bureau of Reclamation's (Reclamation's) Title XVI Water Reclamation and Reuse program (Title XVI) is an important part of WaterSMART. For purposes of the Title XVI Program, a water reuse project is a project that reclaims and reuses municipal, industrial, domestic, or agricultural wastewater and naturally impaired groundwater and/or surface waters. Reclaimed water can be used for a variety of purposes such as environmental restoration, fish and wildlife, groundwater recharge, municipal, domestic, industrial, agricultural, power generation, or recreation. Water reuse is an essential tool in stretching the limited water supplies in the Western United States. Title XVI projects develop and supplement urban and irrigation water supplies through water reuse, thereby improving efficiency, providing flexibility during water shortages, and diversifying the water supply.

The Hydrologic Sciences Program focuses on the fluxes of water in the environment that constitute the water cycle as well as the mass and energy transport function of the water cycle in the environment.  The Program supports studying processes from rainfall to runoff to infiltration and streamflow; evaporation and transpiration; as well as the flow of water in soils and aquifers and the transport of suspended, dissolved and colloidal components.  Water is seen as the mode of coupling among various components of the environment and emphasis is placed on how the coupling is enabled by the water cycle and how it functions as a process.  The Hydrologic Sciences Program retains a strong focus on linking the fluxes of water and the components carried by water across the boundaries between various interacting components of the terrestrial system and the mechanisms by which these fluxes co-organize over a variety of timescales and/or alter the fundamentals of the interacting components.  The Program is also interested in how water interacts with the solid phase, the landscape and the ecosystem as well as how such interactions and couplings are altered by land use and climate change.  Studies may address aqueous geochemistry and solid phase interactions as well as physical, chemical, and biological processes as coupled to water transport. These studies commonly involve expertise from basic sciences and mathematics, and proposals may require joint review with related programs.  The Hydrologic Sciences Program will also consider some synthesis activities.

The NOAA Coral Reef Conservation Grant Program, 16 USC §§ 6401-6409, provides matching grants of financial assistance through the Domestic Coral Reef Conservation Grant program to institutions of higher education, non-profit organizations, for-profit organizations, and local (as defined at 2 CFR § 200.64, which includes counties, municipalities, and cities) and Indian tribal government agencies. These awards are intended to support coral reef conservation projects in shallow water coral reef ecosystems, including reefs at mesophotic depths, in American Samoa, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, Florida, Guam, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and coral-dominated banks in the U.S. portions of the Gulf of Mexico. Projects may be proposed in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands and the U.S. Pacific Remote Island Areas, but these locations are not considered geographic priorities under this announcement. Proposals submitted to this competition must address at least one of the following four categories: 1) Fishing Impacts; 2) Land-Based Sources of Pollution; 3) Climate Change; and 4) Local and Emerging Management Issues. Each category is described in more detail in the Federal Funding Opportunity announcement. All proposed work must be consistent with Coral Reef Conservation Program (CRCP) National Goals and Objectives 2010-2015

The BLM Aquatic Habitat Management works cooperatively with a wide range of constituents to develop strategies that provide protection for sensitive riparian and wetland areas as well as maintain or restore stream function and stream access to floodplains while supporting multiple uses on public lands. The program manages and guides fish and aquatic habitat conservation, riparian and wetland conservation, control of aquatic invasive species, aquatic organism passage, and monitoring riparian and instream habitat conditions and water quantity and quality condition and trends. The NM BLM has opportunities to work with partner organizations to accomplish goals of the BLM Aquatic Habitat Management that include, but are not limited to, such things as: 1. Development and/or implementation of watershed management plans. 2. Increased local capacity to protect and enhance water quality, promote water conservation, and sustain the present health of the watershed. 3. Improvements in the resiliency of ecosystems, communities, and economies in the watershed. 4. Improvements in the hydraulic and geomorphic conditions of streams. 5. Removal of invasive vegetation in riparian areas to enhance fish habitat, water quality and the physical characteristics of the stream. 6. Inventory, modernize and/or develop infrastructure such as culverts and diversion structures in order to improve fish passage. 7. Provide a forum for enhanced communication among diverse stakeholder groups along the watershed.

Coral reefs and associated seagrass and mangrove communities are among the most complex and diverse ecosystems on earth. They support important fishing and tourism industries, protect coasts from wave and storm damage, build tropical islands, contain an array of potential pharmaceuticals, and provide essential services like food security, livelihood, and culture, among other benefits.As shallow-water, near shore communities, coral reef ecosystems are ecologically closely linked to adjacent watersheds and are highly vulnerable to human activity. Stresses in the coral reef environment include poor water quality from runoff and inadequate sewage treatment, destructive fishing practices, sedimentation, recreational overuse and misuse, and impacts from climate change and ocean acidification.To address these threats, Congress passed the Coral Reef Conservation Act of 2000 (Act), which established the NOAA Coral Reef Conservation Program (CRCP) and provided guidance for allocation of Federal funding toward efforts to conserve coral reef ecosystems in the U.S. and Internationally. As required in the Act, one of the primary functions of the CRCP is to provide matching grants of financial assistance to external partners for coral reef conservation projects consistent with the Act and CRCP priorities. 

This Cooperative Agreement is a 5-year project for development and implementation of a Native Water Leasing Pilot Program for the Middle Rio Grande (MRG) to be developed and implemented jointly by the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF) and the Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation) in coordination with the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District (MRGCD). Water acquired under the Program will be used to support implementation of the December 2016 Final Biological Opinion for Bureau of Reclamation, Bureau of Indian Affairs, and Non-Federal Water Management and Maintenance Activities on the Middle Rio Grande, New Mexico (2016 BiOp). The primary focus of the Cooperative Agreement is to develop and implement the cooperative pilot Program with MRGCD and willing sellers over a 5-year implementation period to acquire water for environmental use in the MRG. Through pilot implementation, the Program will set the stage for expanded native water leasing and other voluntary measures at scale as win-win solutions for the river, local communities, agricultural producers, and MRGCD over the long term. Further, it provides a key component of a large-scale long-term opportunity to combine instream water leasing with the restoration of riparian and upper watershed habitats along with other initiatives to advance landscape-scale restoration in the MRG. Areas where collaboration with other agencies and partner organizations will broaden the scope of the effort, leverage additional funding, and increase the prospects for long-term success will be identified throughout the effort.

The NOAA Coral Reef Conservation Grant Program, as authorized under the Coral Reef Conservation Act of 2000, provides matching grants of financial assistance through the Domestic Coral Reef Conservation Grant program to institutions of higher education, non-profit organizations, commercial organizations, and local and Indian tribal government agencies. These awards are intended to support coral reef conservation projects in shallow water coral reef ecosystems, including reefs at mesophotic depths, in American Samoa, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, Florida, Guam, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and coral-dominated banks in U.S. portions of the Gulf of Mexico. Projects may be proposed in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands and the U.S. Pacific Remote Island Areas, but these locations are not considered geographic priorities under this announcement. Proposals submitted to this competition must address at least one of the following four categories: 1) Fishing Impacts; 2) Land-Based Sources of Pollution; 3) Climate Change; and 4) Local and Emerging Management Issues. 

The NOAA Coral Reef Conservation Grant Program, as authorized under the Coral Reef Conservation Act of 2000, provides matching grants of financial assistance through the Domestic Coral Reef Conservation Grant program to institutions of higher education, non-profit organizations, commercial organizations, and local and Indian tribal government agencies. These awards are intended to support coral reef conservation projects in shallow water coral reef ecosystems, including reefs at mesophotic depths, in American Samoa, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, Florida, Guam, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and coral-dominated banks in U.S. 

The Utah Water Science Center (UWSC) of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) is offering a funding opportunity to a CESU partner that has the ability to conduct research on the application of environmental tracers to water resources investigations in Utah and surrounding states including the Great Basin and Upper Colorado River Basin. UWSC primarily conducts research and operates monitoring networks investigating groundwater and surface-water resources in Utah and in adjoining groundwater and surface-water basins. Current research projects and networks include (but are not limited to) Great Salt Lake geochemistry and hydrodynamics, regional groundwater assessments, groundwater and surface-water quality, salinity fate and transport in Upper Colorado River Basin, groundwater discharge to streams in the UCRB, geochemistry and groundwater flow in geothermal systems, Great Basin groundwater availability, numerical ground- and surface-water modeling, methane fate and transport in streams and groundwater-surface water interaction. For more information about UWSC, refer to http://ut.water.usgs.gov/. For a successful cooperative agreement, the CESU partner must have complementary research interests and be able to address these and other potential research topics.

The NOAA Coral Reef Conservation Grant Program (CRCP), 16 USC §§ 6401-6409, provides matching grants of financial assistance through the Domestic Coral Reef Conservation Grant program to institutions of higher education, non-profit organizations, for-profit organizations, and local (as defined at 2 CFR § 200.64, which includes counties, municipalities, and cities) and Indian tribal government agencies. These awards are intended to support coral reef conservation projects in shallow water coral reef ecosystems, including reefs at mesophotic depths, in American Samoa, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, Florida, Guam, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and coral-dominated banks in the U.S. portions of the Gulf of Mexico. Projects may be proposed in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands and the U.S. Pacific Remote Island Areas, but these locations are not considered geographic priorities under this announcement. Proposals submitted to this competition must address at least one of the following five categories: 1) Improve Fisheries Sustainability; 2) Reduce Land-Based Sources of Pollution; 3) Increasing Resilience to Climate Change; 4) Restore Viable Coral Populations; and 5) Local and Emerging Management Issues. Each category is described in more detail in the Federal Funding Opportunity announcement. Proposals selected for funding through this solicitation will be implemented through a grant or cooperative agreement and will require a 1:1 match of non-Federal funds.

Complete information on this RFI can be found on the EERE Exchange website - https://eere-exchange.energy.gov/ The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) Water Power Technologies Office (WPTO) is seeking feedback on its proposed "Waves to Water" prize via this Request for Information (RFI). The Waves to Water prize seeks to address water security and energy needs in remote and coastal communities through small, modular, cost-competitive desalination systems that use the power of the ocean to provide potable drinking water. The objective of this effort is to develop technology solutions that harness ocean energy to desalinate water. Through an anticipated multi-phased contest, the prize seeks to accelerate an innovation cycle timeline that can typically take years and support new innovators and organizations seeking to pair desalination systems with marine energy. Responses to this RFI must be submitted electronically to WPTOPrizes@ee.doe.gov no later than 5:00pm (ET) on March 15, 2019. Complete information on this RFI can be found on the EERE Exchange website - https://eere-exchange.energy.gov/

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), as part of its Science to Achieve Results (STAR) program, is seeking applications to conduct research on and demonstration of human and ecological impacts of treated wastewater applications (reclaimed water and wastewater reuse), and water conservation practices including the use of non-traditional water sources as well as more comprehensive long-term management and availability of water resources.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), as part of its Science to Achieve Results (STAR) program, is seeking applications to conduct research on and demonstration of human and ecological impacts of treated wastewater applications (reclaimed water and wastewater reuse), and water conservation practices including the use of non-traditional water sources as well as more comprehensive long-term management and availability of water resources.

NRCS is the Department of Agriculture's (USDA) conservation agency working with farmers, ranchers, and private forest landowners nationwide to identify and address natural resource objectives in balance with operational goals in order to benefit soil, water, wildlife, and related natural resources locally, regionally, and nationally. NRCS works in partnership with other entities to accelerate getting conservation on the ground. Through the Regional Conservation Partnership Program (RCPP), NRCS seeks to co-invest with partners in innovative, workable, and cost-effective approaches to benefit farming, ranching, and forest operations, local economies, and the communities and resources in a watershed or other geographic area. RCPP partners develop project applications, as described in this notice, to address specific natural resource objectives in a proposed area or region.

The Wildlife Program includes both wildlife and fisheries management, and threatened and endangered species activities. Wildlife and Fisheries Management Wildlife and Fisheries Management activity maintains and restores fish, wildlife, and their habitats by conserving and monitoring habitat conditions, conducting inventories of fish and wildlife resources, and providing for recreational opportunities in coordination with State fish and wildlife agencies. Threatened and Endangered Species Threatened and Endangered Species Program works to conserve and recover federally listed species and their habitat on public lands. The BLM places a special emphasis on maintaining functioning ecosystems to benefit all wildlife and plants, and restoring habitat. Because the habitat of many species includes lands and waters not administered by the BLM, successful conservation requires extensive collaboration and cooperation with a number of partners.

BLM CA has been working with the Amargosa Conservancy for establishing baselines for ground water hydrographs within the region. BLM has installed monitoring wells on public lands within the Amargosa River ACEC. With both BLM and Amargosa Conservancy having the same end results in working with private landowners to conduct much of the restoration on BLM and private lands in the region. BLM will continue to work on joint restoration planning and coordination to continue the monitoring of ground water and control invasive species and restore habitat within the California portion of the Amargosa River watershed. The benefit of having a recipient monitoring resources in addition to the ground water will assist BLM in the development of the Amargosa Wild and Scenic River AWSR management plan especially in data development. A recipient must be able to access all data for this projects that have transpired for the past several years and BLM needs to stay consistent with the same database lines.