2023 Awardees of the Citizen Science Competitive Funding Program
The following projects have been selected to receive up to $20,000 from the Citizen Science Competitive Funding Program (CitSci Fund). The CitSci Fund supports collaborative citizen science efforts where partners, volunteers, and the Forest Service work together in the pursuit of sound science and meaningful community and volunteer engagement.
Ecosystem Management Coordination is funding six projects totaling $108,700.
2023 Total Submissions: 15
Funding Available: $108,700
Number of Projects Funded: 6
- Developing a Citizen Volunteer Water Quality Monitoring Program in Alabama's National Forests
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Location: Region 8, National Forests in Alabama
Partner Project Lead: Mona Dominguez, Alabama Water Watch
Forest Service Project Lead: Estella Smith, Forest Soil Scientist, National Forests in Alabama
Funding Award: $19,998
Project Website: www.alabamawaterwatch.orgProject Summary:
The goal of this project is to strengthen and expand the network of citizen scientists in the National Forests of Alabama who can assist with the collection of water data in priority watersheds, identified through the Forest Service’s Watershed Condition Framework. Volunteers are helping to establish a baseline of water quality observations within the priority watersheds on the National Forests of Alabama. The data will be used to evaluate how management practices result in clean water for the forests, ecosystems, and the public, and to develop a Watershed Restoration Action Plan leading to better land management decisions within each forest.
- Stream Tracker: Crowdsourcing information on nonperennial streams
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Location: Region 2, National Forests in Colorado
Partner Project Lead: Stephanie Kampf, Professor, Colorado State University and Kira Puntenney-Desmond, Research Associate, Colorado State University
Forest Service Project Lead: Matthew Fairchild, Fish Biologist, WO – National Stream and Aquatic Ecology
Funding Award: $20,000
Project Website: www.streamtracker.orgProject Summary:
Maintaining stream health underpins many of the management requirements on national forests, yet nonperennial streams, which make up most of the stream length on national forest land, are rarely monitored. Traditional sensor-based stream monitoring is useful but is limited by budget and staff for equipment management and data processing. Crowdsourcing can expand the number of stream segments monitored while engaging communities in tracking these streams over time. This year, the project hopes to expand volunteer participation and monitoring in under-represented areas of the project’s focus region. This multi-year monitoring informs management decisions around fish reintroduction, helps evaluate post-fire stream and inform risk assessment for post fire flooding and debris flows.
- The Qapqápnim Wéele / Grande Ronde Community Science Project is a science research program that engages youth in watershed monitoring
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Location: Region 6, Oregon, Wallowa-Whitman National Forest
Partner Project Lead: Kayla Morinaga, Monitoring Network Coordinator, Grande Ronde Model Watershed and Carrie Caselton Lowe, Community Science Coordinator, Grande Ronde Model Watershed
Forest Service Project Lead: Sarah Brandy, Fisheries Program Manager, Wallowa-Whitman National Forest
Funding Award: $18,700
Project Website: www.granderondemodelwatershed.orgProject Summary:
The Qapqápnim Wéele / Grande Ronde Community Science Project engages youth in watershed monitoring in rural northeast Oregon and integrates Indigenous ways of knowing with western science practices. The goals of the project are to empower youth and develop a pipeline for future employment and increase community watershed monitoring by using a First Foods approach. Due to the limited capacity to monitor baseline conditions and effectiveness of restoration projects within the Forest Service, this project aims to increase capacity to collect important metrics to determine water quality and biotic characteristics and trends. The Grand Ronde River is listed by the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality as impaired and there is currently a Total Maximum Daily Load for this river that requires additional monitoring. The information collected through this project will help determine status and trend of watershed conditions and inform future activities and conservation strategies.
- Citizen Science and Soil Moisture: Collaboratively Expanding Soil Moisture Data Collection in the Yampa Basin, Colorado
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Location: Region 2, Colorado, Medicine Bow-Routt National Forests & Thunder Basin National Grassland
Partner Project Lead: Michelle Stewart, Executive Director, Yampa Valley Sustainability Council; Madison Muxworthy, Soil Moisture, Water and Snow Program Manager, Yampa Valley Sustainability Council and Nicole Pepper, Geospatial Lead, Yampa Valley Sustainability Council
Forest Service Project Lead: Ryan Adams, Soil Scientist, Medicine Bow-Routt National Forest
Funding Award: $10,000
Project Website: www.yvsc.org/soil-moisture-monitoring-network/Project Summary:
This project aims to understand spatial and temporal soil moisture variability across diverse elevations and land characteristics through engaging citizen scientists. Soil moisture data is a missing data point in understanding climate change impacts especially in the context of managing wildfire risk, changing forest conditions and more. A Region 2 leadership team priority is to “restore healthy, resilient landscapes by reducing wildfire risk to protect communities and lives, improving forest and grassland conditions, and delivering values, products, and services to the American public.” Access to readily available soil moisture and forest condition information will increase the capacity of land management agencies and partners to make informed decisions and adopt proactive adaptation and mitigation strategies in response to drought, disturbances, and other climate change stressors affecting soil moisture availability. Due to remote and difficult access, monitoring soil moisture receives less attention. Citizen science monitoring allows the Forest Service to overcome this challenge by increasing capacity for more remote monitoring.
- Lichens CitiSci
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Location: R5, R6 and R9
Partner Project Lead: Hanna Mestraty, Program Director, Lichens CitiSci and Peter Smerud, Executive Director, Wolf Ridge Environmental Learning Center
Forest Service Project Lead: Karen Dillman, National Air Monitoring Coordinator, WO – Biological and Physical Resources
Funding Award: $20,000
Project Website: www.lichenscitisci.orgProject Summary:
Across the U.S. lichen biomonitoring helps federal land managers meet their responsibilities to detect, map, evaluate trends, and assess the ecological impacts of air pollutants. This citizen science project expands the capacity to monitor and collect samples of this valuable biological indicator and aims to empower citizen scientists to engage directly with issues concerning air quality and climate change on and off National Forest System lands. This project expands on previous efforts by refining digital training tools, developing a lichen community survey protocol to engage broader underrepresented audiences and partnering with Wolf Ridge Environmental Learning Center to engage more youth in lichen biomonitoring.
- Colorado Bat Watch: Monitoring Bats on Colorado’s National Forests and Beyond
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Location: Region 2, National Forests in Colorado
Partner Project Lead: Megan Mueller, Conservation Biologist, Rocky Mountain Wild and Paige Singer, Rocky Mountain Ecologist, Rocky Mountain Wild
Forest Service Project Lead: Melissa Dressen, Regional Wildlife Program Lead, Region 2
Funding Award: $20,000
Project Website: www.coloradobatwatch.orgProject Summary:
This project aims to accelerate the identification and monitoring of biologically important roost sites across National Forest System lands in Colorado. The project was initially developed to meet multi-agency statewide bat research and monitoring needs. With the detection of the fungus that causes white-nose syndrome in Colorado in 2022, there is now a pressing need to accelerate and expand efforts to monitor these populations through the NABat framework. Community science is the optimal approach because data is needed across a large scale and bats may occupy only a small portion of potential bat roost sites, making traditional survey methods difficult.