The U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the National Institutes for Water Resources, supports an annual call for proposals to focus on specific water priorities. Any investigator at an accredited institution of higher learning in Minnesota is eligible to apply through the Water Resources Center.
There are three main competitive grant programs:
- Per-and Polyfluoroalky Substances (PFAS) Grant RFP
- Aquatic Invasive Species (AIS) Grant RFP
- National Competitive (general) Grants RFP
Additionally, there are two non-competitive grant opportunities for both faculty and students to collaborate closely with USGS or other federal scientists:
- Coordination grants
- Student internship grants
WRRA Projects
19F-NMR quantification of PFAS levels and binding
Principal investigator: Bill Arnold
Project topics: hydrology, modeling, sediments
Atmospheric PFAS: Source to sediment
Principal investigator: Alexander Frie
Project topics: hydrology, modeling, sediments
Development of new tools for detecting aquatic invasive plants
Principal investigator: Grant Vagle
Project topics: AIS, modeling
Enhanced degradation of stormwater petrochemicals within the rhizosphere of rain garden bioretention cells
Principal investigator: Paige Novak
Project topics: flooding, hydrology
Genomic surveillance of zebra mussel populations
Principal investigator: Daryl Gohl
Project topics: AIS, modeling
Hydrodynamic resilience to invasive mussels
Principal investigator: Miki Hondzo
Project topics: AIS, hydrology
Identifying characteristics of invasion prone waterbodies
Principal investigator: Nick Phelps
Project topics: AIS, hydrology, modeling
Legacy P and sediment across Upper Midwest
Principal investigator: Diana Karwan
Project topics: sediments
Local and landscape-level effectiveness of aquatic invasive species prevention
Principal investigator: Nick Phelps
Project topics: AIS, hydrology, modeling
Managing water quality and invasive macrophytes to promote healthy native aquatic plant communities
Principal investigator: Ray Newman
Project topics: AIS, water quantity
Next generation AIS monitoring: comparing the speed, sensitivity, specificity, cost, and throughput of multiple eDNA detection methods
Principal investigator: Satoshi Ishii
Project topics: AIS, modeling
Optimizing MinION field protocols for detecting aquatic invasive plants in Upper Mississippi River Basin
Principal investigator: Grant Vagle
Project topics: AIS
Process guided machine learning for water temperature prediction
Principal investigator: Vipin Kumar
Project topics: modeling-
Quantifying heterogeneous impacts of invasive zebra mussels on walleye habitat, food webs, and mercury concentrations
Principal investigator: Gretchen Hansen
Project topics: AIS, hydrology, modeling 
Remotely-sensed water quality of Michigan Lakes: Analysis of lake water clarity and algal biomass using Landsat 8 and Sentinel 2 satellite imagery
Principal investigator: Leif Olmanson
Project topics: modeling, water quality-
Research and development toward a linked data system and foundational knowledge network for the Internet of Water
Principal investigator: Chris Filstrup
Project topics: modeling