Great Lakes Remote Sensing | F18AS00165

Opportunity Information: Apply for F18AS00165

The Great Lakes Remote Sensing opportunity (Funding Opportunity Number F18AS00165) is a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service cooperative agreement tied to the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative (GLRI). Its purpose is to continue an ongoing project that operationally monitors and maps environmental change across the Great Lakes Basin using remote sensing, with a strong emphasis on detecting wetland and broader habitat change over time. Rather than funding a new, open competition, the notice explains that the work is essentially a continuation and scale-up of an existing effort that has already established the data access, technical methods, and computing pipeline needed to produce repeatable, multi-temporal change products that conservation partners can use.

The project is built around a collaboration within the Great Lakes Consortium for Petascale Computing (GLCPC), specifically involving the University of Minnesota and SharedGeo. The University of Minnesota is positioned as the key holder of the satellite imagery access and the algorithms being used, enabled through a unique federal partnership arrangement that the notice states would be infeasible to replicate through other approaches. SharedGeo, described as a nonprofit organization, contributes the high-performance and supercomputing expertise needed to process large volumes of imagery and integrate outputs into the consortium computing environment. In practical terms, the partnership pairs specialized remote sensing methods and data rights on the university side with the heavy computational capacity and processing skills on the SharedGeo side, producing a workflow capable of generating basin-wide, time-series maps of wetlands and habitats.

A central theme in the announcement is that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is not just a funder but an active participant. The Service is described as guiding product development to ensure the outputs match the needs of conservation partners, acting as the federal bridge for requesting future satellite imagery collections, and serving as the federal signatory/partner supporting a binational framework with Canada. The imagery component matters because the project relies on federally licensed commercial satellite data, which can be difficult or impossible for state and local entities to request or license at the necessary scale. On the international side, the Service’s role is linked to an MOU involving Natural Resources Canada and Environment and Climate Change Canada, reflecting the Great Lakes as a shared system where consistent monitoring and restoration planning benefits from coordinated, cross-border data products.

This opportunity is explicitly labeled as a “notice of intent” to make single-source awards, meaning the agency plans to fund the named partners without competition. The justification cited (505 DM 2.14 B.1, 2, and 4) is used to explain why a competitive process is not practical: the University of Minnesota and SharedGeo are presented as uniquely qualified because they already possess the required imagery access, established algorithms, proven computing infrastructure, and prior accomplishments that the project depends on. The announcement frames the approach as a deliberate fusion of complementary strengths into an operational program for derived multi-temporal habitat and wetland change mapping, rather than a one-off research study.

Administratively, the opportunity is a discretionary funding action using a cooperative agreement instrument, which typically indicates substantial federal involvement in execution and decision-making compared to a standard grant. It falls under CFDA 15.662 and is categorized under environment, natural resources, science and technology, and other research and development. The posting lists an award ceiling of $135,000 and anticipates two awards, consistent with the stated intent to fund both the University of Minnesota and SharedGeo. The notice was created on June 5, 2018, with an original closing date of June 12, 2018, reflecting a short window typical of single-source intent notices where the primary purpose is public transparency rather than soliciting broad proposals.

Overall, the grant opportunity supports an established, partner-driven remote sensing capability for the Great Lakes Basin, designed to turn high-resolution satellite imagery and advanced processing into practical, repeatable maps of wetland and habitat change. The core value proposition is continuity and operationalization: maintaining a functioning pipeline that combines exclusive data/algorithm access, petascale computing, and federal coordination to deliver decision-ready information for restoration and long-term ecosystem oversight across a binational watershed.

• The Department of the Interior, Fish and Wildlife Service in the environment, natural resources, science and technology and other research and development sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Great Lakes Remote Sensing" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 15.662.
• This funding opportunity was created on Jun 05, 2018.
• Applicants must submit their applications by Jun 12, 2018 This is a notice of intent to award single source cooperative agreements to the University of Minnesota and SharedGeo without competition under justification 505DM 2.14. B. 1, 2 and 4.. (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 2 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: Others (see text field entitled Additional Information on Eligibility for clarification).

Apply for F18AS00165

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