U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service: Great Lakes Remote Sensing Grant Opportunity

Wetlands are continually changing from climate and human actions. The Great Lakes Coastal Wetlands are part of the largest surface freshwater reserve on the planet which makes then unique and valuable both from and an environmental and functional aspect. Past wetland mapping programs on both sides of the border used traditional 2-D cartographic representations at various scales, formats-and classifications where they have become outdated over time.

This project is the first step at moving to a new stage where time and elevation is included to provide a 4-D representation of Great Lakes coastal wetlands using multi-temporal sub-meter optical and radar satellite imagery.

Substantial involvement on the part of the Service is anticipated for the successful completion of the activities to be funded. In particular, the Service provides the federal nexus for access to the commercial satellite imagery which will be used the partners to complete the task. The Service also has the direct connection to Canadian wetland mapping programs through past projects.

This is a notice of intent to award single source cooperative agreement to SharedGeo under justification 505DM 2.14.B (1, 2 and 4). The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) will be substantially involved in this project under this funding opportunity. In particular, the Service will be responsible for providing the federal nexus for access to commercial satellite imagery through the NextView and related remote sensing data programs. The Service will oversee this collaborative project providing communication and management direction through the Service’s Midwest Region, Ecological Services Program. Competition for the award is not practical as the eligible applicant has the necessary experience and resources to accomplish this project which includes peta-scale datasets and computing to derive the end products. This is a collaborative project to fuse the past strengths and accomplishments of the applicants into a derived goal of multi-temporal wetland and wetland change mapping.