Identifying and Evaluating Impacts to Wetlands from the Savannah River Estuary | W81EWF 24 SOI 0010

Opportunity Information: Apply for W81EWF 24 SOI 0010

This grant opportunity, titled "Identifying and Evaluating Impacts to Wetlands from the Savannah River Estuary" (Funding Opportunity Number W81EWF 24 SOI 0010), is a discretionary U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC) effort being offered as a cooperative agreement. It supports science and technology research tied to the Savannah Harbor Expansion Project (SHEP), specifically the Monitoring and Adaptive Management Plan (MAMP) that USACE created to track environmental effects associated with harbor deepening and related coastal infrastructure changes in the Savannah River Estuary along Georgia and South Carolina.

The core purpose is to continue long-term, field-based monitoring of tidal marshes to confirm whether impacts predicted in the SHEP Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) remain within expected bounds during and after construction. A major concern highlighted in the FEIS is marsh "conversion" driven by changing salinity and hydrology, particularly the potential shift of some freshwater marsh to brackish marsh, and some salt marsh to brackish marsh. The work builds directly on an existing monitoring timeline: earlier work began in 2013, and a pre-construction monitoring phase has already been completed to establish a baseline. This award launches the next monitoring commitment spanning the during- and post-construction phases, described as another five-year effort, so that observed conditions can be compared against that baseline and used to guide adaptive management if conditions begin trending beyond what was anticipated.

Fieldwork will be conducted at 12 marsh sites within the Savannah River Estuary. The opportunity is very specific about methodological continuity: the recipient must replicate the field procedures used by Clemson Universitys Baruch Institute of Coastal Ecology and Forest Science (Department of Forestry and Natural Resources) from 2014 through 2023 under SHEP monitoring. Those methods, in turn, were aligned with earlier approaches used by the USGS Florida Fish and Wildlife Cooperative Research Unit during wetlands monitoring in 2000 and 2001. In practical terms, the funder is prioritizing comparability across decades so that any detected changes in vegetation communities or salinity conditions can be interpreted as real environmental trends rather than artifacts of shifting protocols.

Two main technical tasks define what the monitoring is expected to document and evaluate. First, the project must document impacts of hydrologic change on tidal marshes resulting from harbor deepening. That includes evaluating tidal flooding patterns across different marsh types and measuring salinity both in surface waters and within the marsh root zone, since root-zone salinity is tightly linked to plant stress, plant community shifts, and long-term marsh stability. The resulting datasets are expected to be more than raw measurements: they must be analyzed for patterns, trends over time (including differences under varying flow conditions), and relationships between hydrologic variables and ecological response, and then integrated into detailed maps that show sampling locations alongside the observed values and interpreted results.

Second, the project must document vegetation change in tidal marshes associated with those hydrologic modifications. This component focuses on tracking the diversity and abundance of plant species across the estuaries range of marsh communities, including freshwater marsh, brackish marsh, and salt marsh. The intent is to detect whether plant communities are shifting in ways consistent with salinity-driven conversion, and to quantify those changes in a way that supports clear comparison with the established pre-construction baseline and previous monitoring cycles.

The reporting and communication expectations are also clearly spelled out. The recipient is required to submit monthly and quarterly progress reports, plus annual report(s) that document methods used and analyses conducted throughout the period of performance. In addition, the awardee may be asked to present findings and monitoring results to natural resource agencies and to the public when appropriate, reflecting the public-interest nature of SHEP and the role monitoring plays in accountability and environmental management decisions.

Eligibility is limited: applicants must be non-federal partners of the Piedmont-South Atlantic Coast Cooperative Ecosystems Studies Unit (CESU). The opportunity also emphasizes compliance and disclosure requirements related to current and pending support; disclosures in the application can affect eligibility, and ERDC may request updated information before award and throughout the project, with the possibility that funding could be discontinued based on those reviews. The notice further states that religious organizations may compete on equal footing with secular organizations for federal financial assistance, consistent with Executive Order 13798.

Key administrative details include an anticipated single award (ExpectedAwards: 1) with an award ceiling of $302,500. The original closing date listed is 2024-02-02, and the opportunity was created on 2023-12-01. The CFDA number referenced is 12.630, and the activity category is listed as science and technology and other research and development, which matches the mix of field monitoring, data analysis, mapping, and applied ecological interpretation required under the MAMP.

• The Engineer Research and Development Center in the science and technology and other research and development sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Identifying and Evaluating Impacts to Wetlands from the Savannah River Estuary" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 12.630.
• This funding opportunity was created on 2023-12-01.
• Applicants must submit their applications by 2024-02-02. (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 $302,500.00 in funding.
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 1 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: Others.

Apply for W81EWF 24 SOI 0010

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