Migratory Bird Monitoring Assessment and Conservation

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Northeast Region, intends to make a sole source award of a cooperative agreement to Old Dominion University Research Foundation (ODU) in the amount of $38,000 in FY 2017. ODU is an institution of higher learning that has been funded to conduct photogrammetric and GIS analyses of saltmarsh habitats and has unique experience in developing novel approaches that increase the accuracy of the final classification. This is an announcement for issuing a single source financial assistance award to Old Dominion University Research Foundation. This announcement is for notification purposes only. The intent of this award is to support photogrammetric and GIS activities in support of coastal marsh conservation. In particular, this award is issued to provide financial assistance to 1) map high and low marshes with high multispectral imagery, delimiting salt marsh ecotones, synthesizing available field and remotely sensed reference data; 2) conduct a rigorous accuracy assessment and quality assurance protocol to ensure the validity and best feasible user accuracy of salt marsh maps; and 3) provide additional digital maps and documentation to include seamless coverage of marsh habitats between the SALCC and Florida Peninsular LCC for their planning atlases and Science Base repository. Salt marshes are critical habitats for the conservation of fauna and ecological functioning of the coast. Inventorying and mapping marsh dynamics have emerged as high priorities for assessing regional vulnerability to sea-level rise, requiring synthesis of existing marsh habitat maps, improved methodology for continual monitoring, and assessment of their vulnerability with modeling and analysis.