Cyberinfrastructure of real time water quality management in the San Joaquin River Basin | Apply Online

Opportunity Summary:

The grant opportunity "Cyberinfrastructure of real time water quality management in the San Joaquin River Basin" (Funding Opportunity Number BOR MP N011) is a Bureau of Reclamation, Mid-Pacific Region discretionary cooperative agreement focused on building the technical and organizational backbone needed to manage river water quality in near-real time. The central idea is to move away from purely static, compliance-after-the-fact regulation and toward a more dynamic approach where basin stakeholders can see current conditions, anticipate problems, and adjust operations quickly enough to stay within water quality requirements. In practice, the project uses salinity in the San Joaquin River Basin as the first major test case, with the intent that a working real-time framework for salinity could later be extended to harder-to-manage contaminants such as mercury or to nutrients like nitrate.

At the core of the project is the development of "cyberinfrastructure" that supports decision-making as conditions change. That includes deploying and integrating environmental sensor networks that continuously measure flow and water quality, plus the communications systems needed to move those data reliably (including radio and CDMA telemetry). It also includes modern data and computing tools such as cloud-based computing, web services, and GIS-based modeling so that information can be processed, quality-checked, and turned into forecasts rather than just raw numbers. A key deliverable is software that performs real-time quality assurance on continuous monitoring data, helping ensure the information being used for operational decisions is scientifically defensible and not distorted by sensor drift, telemetry dropouts, or other common issues in continuous monitoring systems. The opportunity also emphasizes user-facing elements like web-based access to data and models, and visualization tools that make it easier for diverse stakeholders to understand conditions and act quickly.

The recipient is expected to take on several concrete roles. First, they are to design and implement what is described as the first real-time salinity management program, positioned as an alternative approach to meeting EPA-mandated Waste Discharge requirements under the existing salinity and boron Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL). Second, they must build the enabling infrastructure: monitoring networks, telemetry, web data portals, forecast models, and web access to both model inputs and model outputs so that stakeholders can see not just what is happening now, but what is likely to happen next under different operational choices. Third, the recipient must conduct stakeholder outreach and training, demonstrating how to use the decision support tools and coordinating real-time salinity management practice with other basin participants. Fourth, the work is meant to be closely tied to UC Merced, including active collaboration with UC Merced students and faculty to strengthen workforce development and to connect Reclamation planning, modeling, and decision-support development with academic research and education.

Because this is structured as a cooperative agreement, Reclamation anticipates substantial involvement rather than a hands-off grant. Reclamation staff (including the Government Officer's Technical Representative, or GOTR) will collaborate with the recipient and participating students, technicians, and scientists, which can include mentoring, coordination, and facilitating cooperation with other Reclamation personnel as needed to meet the project goals. Reclamation also serves a formal administrative role as the federal liaison for conveying funding to the Regents of the University of California, Merced.

The opportunity was issued as a single-source award rather than a fully competed solicitation, justified on the basis of unique qualifications. The narrative points to a specific research scientist with roughly 26 years of California higher education and research affiliations (including UC Merced, UC Berkeley, Berkeley National Laboratory, and California State University, Fresno), along with extensive public outreach experience and service on state-level planning and advisory committees. The justification also highlights deep involvement in stakeholder-driven and regional planning efforts like CVSALTS and the CALFED Bay-Delta program, framing that experience as critical because real-time management depends heavily on stakeholder coordination and trust in the tools and data. UC Merced is positioned as a particularly valuable partner because of its role in educating future basin leaders and because this agreement is described as the first between UC Merced and Reclamation, aligning with longer-term goals of the CESU program.

Legally and programmatically, the work is tied to Reclamation's responsibilities in the Central Valley Project and to congressional direction in the Water Supply, Reliability, and Environmental Improvement Act (Public Law 108-361). The project is presented as part of a broader "Program to Meet Standards" intended to provide more flexibility in meeting existing water quality standards and objectives while reducing reliance on releases from New Melones Reservoir used for water quality and fishery flow purposes. The statutory discussion points to approaches such as recirculation using export pumping and conveyance capacity to manage salinity, coordinated best management practices to reduce water quality impacts from certain discharges (including wildlife refuges receiving federal water), coordination of discharge timing to improve assimilation, and potential acquisition of water from willing sellers to improve flow and dilution. In this context, real-time salinity management and its supporting cyberinfrastructure are framed as practical tools that can help Reclamation and basin partners meet standards more efficiently and with better operational flexibility.

In terms of basic funding details, the opportunity was posted March 21, 2016, with an application closing date of April 4, 2016. It anticipated a single award with an award ceiling of $893,785. Eligible applicants were limited to public and state-controlled institutions of higher education. The CFDA number listed is 15.533, and the activity category is natural resources.

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