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 104g 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
Current projects
Completed projects
Process guided machine learning for water temperature prediction
Vipin Kumar | Department of Computer Science and Engineering
This project will support methods development for combining advanced artificial intelligence models with process-based models of water temperature, both of which have significant drawbacks when used alone but have the potential to increase predictive accuracy when used together.
Research and development toward a linked data system and foundational knowledge network for the Internet of Water
Chris Filstrup | Natural Resources Research Institute
This work builds from existing USGS studies and is developing workflows that support the automation of the pipeline from data collection to trend analysis in order to update trend assessments regularly and provide timely information to stakeholders.
Local and landscape-level effectiveness of aquatic invasive species prevention
Nick Phelps | Minnesota Aquatic Invasive Species Research Center
Through a mix of literature review, researcher and manager surveys, and a series of experimental studies, we will quantify the range of effectiveness for common AIS prevention strategies employed in the region, including best management practices by boaters, professional watercraft inspection, and high-pressure decontamination.
Quantifying heterogeneous impacts of invasive zebra mussels on walleye habitat, food webs, and mercury concentrations
Gretchen Hansen | Dept. of Fisheries, Wildlife and Conservation Biology
Here, we propose to quantify the impacts of zebra mussels on walleye habitat, food webs, and mercury concentrations across a gradient of lakes in the upper Midwest, and to identify factors that confer resilience of lakes and walleye populations to these impacts.