Food For Fish: Reintegrating floodplain food web productivity into the River Aquatic Ecosystem to Benefit Juvenile Salmon | BOR MP 19 N014

Opportunity Information: Apply for BOR MP 19 N014

This grant opportunity, titled "Food For Fish: Reintegrating floodplain food web productivity into the River Aquatic Ecosystem to Benefit Juvenile Salmon" (Funding Opportunity Number BOR MP 19 N014), is a discretionary natural resources grant issued by the U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Reclamation. It is funded under CFDA 15.512 and authorized through Public Law 102-575, specifically Sections 3406(b)(1) and 3407(e). The Bureau of Reclamation planned a single award, with an estimated total agreement value of $997,775.55, including $881,973.26 provided in Fiscal Year 2019. The eligible applicant category listed is 501(c)(3) nonprofits (excluding institutions of higher education), and the intended recipient named in the announcement is California Trout Inc., indicating this was structured as a targeted award rather than an open competition. The opportunity was posted on August 23, 2019, with an original closing date of September 5, 2019.

At its core, the project is about rebuilding a key missing link in the Sacramento River ecosystem: the natural floodplain food production that historically supported young salmon. Over time, levees, drainage systems, and floodplain disconnection have reduced the ability of seasonal wetlands to generate and export the plankton-rich food resources that juvenile fish rely on. This study focuses on a practical, landscape-scale pilot approach that uses existing agricultural infrastructure, especially drainage systems associated with rice farming, to mimic some of the ecological functions of floodplains during the winter non-growing season. The idea is to intentionally manage flooded rice fields as "surrogate floodplain wetlands" so they can produce abundant aquatic food (particularly zooplankton) and then deliver that productivity to the Lower Sacramento River, where juvenile Chinook salmon can benefit.

The first main objective is to measure the direct effects of this pilot floodplain reconnection strategy by reoperating existing drainage infrastructure in a way that links floodplain food webs back to the river. The project plans to manage about 5,000 acres of floodplain rice fields during winter as seasonal wetlands. Researchers will monitor how this management influences the production and movement of fish food into the river and how salmon respond. The announcement highlights three core data types for this objective: water quality conditions in the managed floodplain and receiving waters, zooplankton density (as a direct indicator of food-web productivity and prey availability), and juvenile Chinook salmon growth rates (a biologically meaningful outcome tied to survival and long-term fitness).

The second objective is more experimental and is aimed at pinning down a specific mechanism that strongly controls floodplain productivity: water residence time, meaning how long water stays on the floodplain before draining back to the river. Residence time affects temperature, nutrient cycling, plankton blooms, and overall biological production. The project proposes controlled and replicated experimentation to empirically determine how different residence times change aquatic ecosystem productivity. In practice, that means using management controls (such as timing and rate of drainage) to create comparable test conditions and then measuring how food-web indicators respond. This part of the work is meant to move beyond correlation and provide clearer cause-and-effect evidence that can guide future floodplain management designs.

The third objective focuses on long-term monitoring to strengthen understanding of Sacramento River food webs, especially at key junctions where floodplain drainage meets the Lower Sacramento River. This is important because the benefits to salmon depend not only on floodplain production, but also on whether that production is actually exported to the river at the right times and in the right form to be usable by fish. The project will continue building long-term datasets tracking aquatic food-web conditions, with an emphasis on monitoring the delivery of floodplain-generated zooplankton to the river under varying water conditions. That includes paying close attention to major confluences where drainage flows enter the river and evaluating how changes in hydrology influence the amount and quality of food subsidies reaching salmon habitat.

Overall, the opportunity supports an applied science and management demonstration that blends agricultural floodplain management with river ecosystem restoration goals. The intended outcome is not just more data, but actionable evidence on whether seasonal flooding of rice fields, combined with strategic drainage operations, can reliably produce and export floodplain food resources to improve juvenile salmon growth in the Lower Sacramento River, while also clarifying how water residence time can be tuned to maximize ecological productivity.

• The Department of the Interior, Bureau of Reclamation in the natural resources sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Food For Fish: Reintegrating floodplain food web productivity into the River Aquatic Ecosystem to Benefit Juvenile Salmon" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 15.512.
• This funding opportunity was created on Aug 23, 2019.
• Applicants must submit their applications by Sep 05, 2019. (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 $1.00 in funding.
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 1 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: Nonprofits having a 501(c)(3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education.

Apply for BOR MP 19 N014

[Watch] Creating a grant proposal using the step-by-step wizard inside the applicant portal: