Cooperative Agreement for CESU-affiliated Partner with Great Rivers Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit | G23AS00070

Opportunity Information: Apply for G23AS00070

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) grant opportunity titled "Cooperative Agreement for CESU-affiliated Partner with Great Rivers Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit" (Funding Opportunity Number G23AS00070) is a discretionary financial assistance award intended to support applied research and database development focused on inland recreational fisheries and climate adaptation. The award is offered as a cooperative agreement, meaning USGS expects to have substantial involvement in the funded work (for example, coordinating technical direction, aligning products with agency needs, and ensuring the resulting tools and outputs are useful for management). The opportunity sits within the Science and Technology and other Research and Development category and is issued under the Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit (CESU) Program, which is designed to connect federal agencies with partner institutions to deliver research, technical assistance, and education that address natural resource management priorities.

At the center of the project are two existing, publicly available national-scale resources: the U.S. Inland Creel and Angler Survey Catalog (CreelCat) and the Fish and Climate Change database (FiCli). CreelCat functions as a consolidated catalog of inland recreational fishing information, helping establish a baseline of inland recreational fishing metrics across the United States. In practice, that type of catalog supports comparisons across regions and time by organizing and standardizing information from creel surveys and angler surveys, which are commonly used by agencies to estimate fishing effort, catch, harvest, and related recreational fishing indicators. FiCli, in contrast, compiles summary information linking climate effects on fish with management actions, offering a structured way to understand what is known about climate-driven impacts on fish populations and how managers have responded (or could respond) through adaptation strategies.

While CreelCat and FiCli each have standalone value, the main emphasis of this funding opportunity is integration and applied use, not simply maintaining two separate databases. USGS is specifically looking for work that maintains and further develops both datasets while also demonstrating how they can be used together to inform real management decisions, especially decisions tied to climate adaptation. The notice highlights that the project should connect with ongoing Climate Adaptation Science Centers (CASC)-funded research, suggesting that USGS wants the resulting products to complement and extend existing regional and national climate adaptation efforts rather than duplicate them. A key technical direction is to use the combined strengths of CreelCat (recreational angling and creel metrics) and FiCli (climate impacts and management responses) to support modeling efforts that can predict how inland recreational anglers may respond to global environmental change. That modeling focus implies an interest in forecasting behavioral or participation shifts under changing environmental conditions, such as altered fish distributions, changes in catch rates, seasonal accessibility, heat or drought constraints, water temperature impacts, and other climate-related stressors that could influence where, when, and how people fish.

Eligibility is limited to partners that participate in the Great Rivers Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit (CESU). In other words, only institutions formally affiliated with that CESU can apply, reflecting the program structure where CESU networks serve as the contracting and collaboration pathway for federal-university and federal-nonprofit research partnerships. The opportunity lists eligible applicants broadly as "Others," but that category is effectively narrowed by the CESU membership requirement. The assistance listing references CFDA numbers 15.808 and 15.820, which are associated with USGS programs supporting research and related scientific activities.

In terms of funding and timing, the opportunity was created on November 9, 2022, with an original closing date of December 9, 2022. The award ceiling is $300,000. The posting indicates expected awards but does not clearly specify the number in the provided extract, implying either one award or an unspecified number depending on proposals and available funds. Overall, the opportunity is best understood as a targeted research and tool-development cooperative agreement: it supports continued stewardship of two national databases and prioritizes practical integration, demonstration of management applications (with an emphasis on climate adaptation), and advancement of predictive modeling to better anticipate inland angler responses under global environmental change.

• The Geological Survey in the science and technology and other research and development sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Cooperative Agreement for CESU-affiliated Partner with Great Rivers Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 15.808, 15.820.
• This funding opportunity was created on 2022-11-09.
• Applicants must submit their applications by 2022-12-09. (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 $300,000.00 in funding.
• Eligible applicants include: Others.

Apply for G23AS00070

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