Saltmarsh Habitat and Avian Research Program; Hurricane Sandy | F17AS00324

Opportunity Information: Apply for F17AS00324

The Saltmarsh Habitat and Avian Research Program; Hurricane Sandy grant opportunity (Funding Opportunity Number F17AS00324) is a U.S. Department of the Interior, Fish and Wildlife Service discretionary funding announcement intended to support long-term monitoring and research at tidal marsh restoration sites affected by Hurricane Sandy. It is structured as a cooperative agreement under CFDA 15.677 and was created on July 20, 2017, with an original closing date of August 25, 2017. Although the eligibility field is listed as unrestricted, the notice makes clear it is a single-source financial assistance award to the University of Delaware in Newark, Delaware, and the announcement is provided primarily for public notification rather than to solicit competing applications. The expected number of awards is one, with an award ceiling of $2,450,000.

The core purpose of the project is to evaluate how coastal wetlands and associated wildlife respond to marsh restoration actions implemented after Hurricane Sandy across the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern United States, spanning from Virginia to Maine. The work focuses on tracking breeding bird responses, vegetation conditions, and marsh elevation at restoration sites linked to Sandy impacts, while also carrying out additional research and conservation activities designed to improve the overall status of tidal marsh bird and plant communities. The project authority comes from the Disaster Relief Appropriations Act of 2013 (Public Law 113-02), tying the funding directly to Sandy-related recovery and resilience efforts.

A central feature of the program is its emphasis on both ecological outcomes and practical decision-making value. The project continues an evaluation of the ecological integrity of wetlands that received restoration treatments following the storm, including thin-layer sediment deposition (used to build elevation and counteract subsidence or sea-level rise effects) and hydrologic modification techniques (used to restore or improve tidal flow and marsh function). Beyond documenting whether conditions improve, the effort explicitly aims to quantify the cost-effectiveness of these restoration approaches, both at the technique level and at the level of individual projects that applied them. This cost-effectiveness component is intended to help agencies and partners understand which investments deliver the strongest ecological returns and under what conditions.

The monitoring and analysis are designed as a multi-year, regionally relevant assessment that leverages a rare, robust dataset. The project combines extensive baseline information collected immediately before and after Hurricane Sandy at marsh restoration sites, along with data from a wide array of control sites, and then adds another six years of monitoring (2017 through 2022). Using this before-after and restoration-control framework, the program will assess restoration effects on multiple endpoints: (a) marsh vegetation characteristics and change over time, (b) marsh elevation and elevation trajectories, (c) wildlife responses at both local site scales and broader population scales, (d) risk to wildlife populations across the region, and (e) the cost-effectiveness of restoration actions. Overall, the opportunity is aimed at producing defensible, long-term evidence on whether Sandy-related tidal marsh restoration is working, how it is influencing birds and marsh ecosystems, and how future restoration dollars can be spent more strategically across the Virginia-to-Maine coastal marsh network.

• The Department of the Interior, Fish and Wildlife Service in the natural resources sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Saltmarsh Habitat and Avian Research Program; Hurricane Sandy" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 15.677.
• This funding opportunity was created on Jul 20, 2017.
• Applicants must submit their applications by Aug 25, 2017. (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 $2,450,000.00 in funding.
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 1 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: Unrestricted (i.e., open to any type of entity above), subject to any clarification in text field entitled Additional Information on Eligibility.

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