Region 9 Wetland Program Development Grants

Quick Look

Collaboration Goal:
Assist EPA Region 9 staff with updating the Request for Applications (RFA) document for the FY23-24 round of Wetland Program Development Grants (WPDG) to highlight ecological resilience and community engagement priorities for State and Tribal applicants in support of proposal development.

Process:

Use the Organon's planning components to organize guidance found in EPA Office of Water's Tribal, State, and Territory Wetlands Program Core Elements Framework in the areas of: 1) monitoring and assessment; 2) regulatory approaches; 3) voluntary restoration and protection; and 4) water quality standards for wetlands.
Explore the connections of the different core elements to the instructions of the RFA and the Organon’s specifications for resilience planning and broad public engagement.

Benefits to State and Tribal Applicants:

Guidance on the key components of resilience planning in the context of WPDGs.
A table in the R9 RFA (pages 11-12) featuring specific examples of how to address resilience through broad public engagement in a WPDG application.
A Fillable Table Resource that can be downloaded, edited and adapted for use in other grant application processes.

Background

Cover page of EPA Office of Water's Core Elements Framework — Figure 1. EPA Office of Water's Core Elements Framework provides guidance to applicants regarding programmatic areas on which to focus WPDG proposals.

The EPA's WPDGs assist state, tribal, and local government agencies in building programs to protect, manage and restore wetlands. Through this program, applicants build their capacity to increase the quantity and quality of U.S. wetlands using one or more of the "Core Elements" in the Core Elements Framework (Figure 1). These elements describe programmatic areas centered on: monitoring and assessment; voluntary restoration and protection; regulatory approaches; and water quality standards for wetlands. Region 9 grants are awarded every other fiscal year (FY) on a two-year cycle.

Applicants submit proposals in response to a Request for Applications (RFA) released each cycle. For FY23-24, national priorities included topics around ecological resilience to environmental changes and collaborative engagement with local communities; individual EPA regions then had the option to highlight specific regional priorities. EPA Region 9, which includes Arizona, California, Nevada, Hawaii and the Pacific Island territories of American Samoa, Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, and 148 Tribes, included a priority for projects that address protection and restoration of special aquatic resources increasingly at risk of degradation and destruction. This included a call for more explicit inclusion of both resilience planning and public engagement as essential considerations to build into FY23-24 State and Tribal WPDG applications. In support of this, Region 9 staff teamed with EPA Office of Research and Development (ORD) to use the resilience-based planning steps of the Organon to develop guidance for WPDG applicants.

Methods

The seven steps of the Organon with steps one through five highlighted — Figure 2. The WPDG case study covered the first five components of the Organon. The two steps that were not covered are colored in gray.

Since WPDGs fund wetland program development (not implementation), the focus of this exercise was the first five components of the Organon, ending at an action plan (Figure 2). The team carried out a comprehensive review of the Core Elements Framework and the national-level RFA, from which concepts, guidance, and references to different aquatic resources were mapped to components of the Organon in which they best fit.

Using this information, for each of the five Organon components (goal setting; vulnerability assessment; site evaluation; intervention design; and action planning) the team developed specific examples illustrating the types of resilience and public engagement considerations to address. Depending on whether a proposal would be focused on the core element of monitoring, regulatory approaches, restoration, or water quality, applicants could review examples based on which aspect of program planning applies to them and learn how to specifically address resilience and public engagement needs to strengthen their proposals.

Results

A table was created for inclusion in the Region 9 RFA for FY23-24 (see pages 11-12) to provide applicants with examples of how to potentially address the region's priorities in their applications. The examples focus on protection and restoration of sensitive aquatic resources through the wetland program planning process, with special attention to minimizing vulnerabilities to changing environmental conditions (i.e., increasing resilience) while collaborating broadly with communities through public engagement. Table 1 (below) further improves and extends the concepts from the original table to include all Organon steps and speak more broadly to any type of aquatic resource grant. The table lists potentially-relevant program planning components (based on the key components of the Organon) and illustrates how proposals could be strengthened by more detailed inclusion of ecological resilience and public engagement considerations.

Table 1. Organon components of planning and implementation, with ideas for how to address ecological resilience and broad public engagement in aquatic resource grant proposals.

ORGANON COMPONENTS OF PLANNING & IMPLEMENTATION	EXAMPLE ECOLOGICAL RESILIENCE CONSIDERATIONS	EXAMPLE PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT CONSIDERATIONS
1. Set Goal & Scope	Include in the goal and scope statement what the aquatic resource study, protection, or restoration will accomplish under ongoing environmental changes. For example: Restored structure, function, and resilience to extreme events in a specific geographic area Specified time frame adequate to evaluate a measurable increase in resilience Robustness indicators (e.g., water quality, species richness, survival rates) as measures of effectiveness	Scope could include aquatic resources that are, for example: In outlying geographic areas Of high community value Associated with at-risk communities Supporting fishing and hunting Critical to local economies
2. Assess Threats & Vulnerabilities	Assess threats of local and large-scale environmental change stressors to the aquatic resource of interest as well as its vulnerability to exposures and capacity to resist or recover. For example: Evaluate the vulnerabilities of aquatic resource condition, function, and area Include direct physical impacts of storms, wildfires and heat waves Include interactive effects through factors such as changing precipitation, floods and droughts	Assess with communities their vulnerabilities to inter-related economic and ecological factors. For example: Reliance on services provided by aquatic resources (e.g., flood control, fisheries, wildlife habitat) Unequal tradeoffs among regulatory options Lack of consideration of local knowledge
3. Identify, Evaluate & Prioritize Sites	Whether an identified site has already been selected or multiple sites will be prioritized, site evaluation(s) should consider, for example: Vulnerability assessment information on environmental change exposures and aquatic resource resilience at site(s) Expected effects of exposures and resilience on the current and future status of site(s) Implications of above for site suitability for achieving monitoring, restoration, or other goals	Site-specific evaluation could also include specific community impacts and outreach needs. For example: Social risk indicators and data on communities impacted by the site(s) Inclusion in the site selection process of relevant public stakeholders such as impacted, invested and outlying communities
4. Identify, Design & Select Interventions	When developing interventions, include strategic design considerations, with selection based on effectiveness under both current and future conditions. For example: Analyze current effectiveness of different aquatic resources interventions, e.g., reduce erosion and prevent marsh "drowning" Consider how environmental change impacts (e.g., rising seas, stronger storms) could necessitate design changes Select and use interventions that will function effectively under long-term environmental change	Include working with local communities to ensure that selected interventions achieve particular community needs. For example: Providing benefits (e.g., jobs, improved mental health, safety) to at-risk groups Mitigating risks (e.g., flooding, fisheries habitat loss, water contamination) Aligning with community values
5. Assemble Objectives, Targets & Action Plan	Use information from the previous steps to inform site- and intervention-specific objectives and stepwise targets for reaching them. This includes, for example: Crafting targets that are "SMART" (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound) Establishing targets for achievable biological or physical conditions given environmental changes Building practical timelines and staffing that will allow for adjustments to future changes	Action plan elements for working collaboratively with communities could include, for example: Building local capacity by highlighting areas for community involvement Establishing objectives consistent community priorities, lifestyles and capacity
6. Implement Interventions & Monitoring	Implementation of aquatic resource activities occurs via initial pilot trials (if needed) that are then scaled-up, with monitoring used to inform adjustments to address environmental changes through time. This includes, for example: Timing and sequencing of activities that take into account environmental change factors and effects Monitoring before, during, and following actions to measure environmental change effects as well as system responses to management interventions Including indicators of resilience and robustness in monitoring plans	Support local communities in establishing a sense of responsibility and ownership over implementation, increasing the probability of long-term success by: Tapping into community networks to spread awareness of opportunities in which to be involved or give feedback Designating project roles to community volunteers and leaders to help with implementation Using mutually agreed-upon metrics that are clear and fit the community context
7. Document Progress & Evaluate Success	Evaluation involves tracking effectiveness of progress (i.e., carrying out actions as planned) and success (i.e., reaching aquatic resource goals) according to targets. This includes, for example: Assessing impacts of environmental changes on the ability to carry out project actions Assessing effects of environmental changes on detecting or achieving targeted changes in the aquatic resource Evaluating project status in terms of concrete advancements toward, and eventual achievement of, the original goal(s), including the role of environmental changes in when/how/whether goal(s) have been met	Work with community members to define what project progress and success look like with respect to agreed-upon goals and priorities. This can be achieved by: Setting expectations early and often, including communicating possible project limitations Establishing channels for public feedback and adapting success metrics as needed Maintaining transparency and outlining how the interventions(s) will be maintained for long-term community benefits

Positive outcomes beyond Region 9 of this partner project and the table it produced have included: broad sharing of the table by Region 9 with other EPA Regions interested in picking up its use; a detectable influence of the table on FY23-24 grant applications; and requests from across the broader research community for an editable version of the table for use by anyone who wishes to strengthen their aquatic resource grant proposals with more effective inclusion of ecological resilience and public engagement considerations. To read more about our Outcomes Analysis, or to download the editable version of the table for use as a Fillable Table Resource, please click the links below.

Outcomes Analysis for the Region 9 Partner Project

Fillable Table Resource for Grant-Writing (docx)

Partner Team

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Region 9

Hudson Slay, Life Scientist, EPA Region 9 Water Division (WD)
Melissa Scianni, Life Scientist, EPA Region 9 WD
Sarvy Mahdavi, Life Scientist, EPA Region 9 WD
Joe Morgan, Physical Scientist, EPA Region 9 WD

EPA Office of Research and Development (ORD)

Jordan West, Senior Ecologist, ORD
Candace May, Social Scientist, ORD
Ian Reilly, ORISE Fellow at EPA
Raven Nee, ORISE Fellow at EPA

Technical Support

Anna Hamilton, Tetra Tech, Inc.