Cooperative Agreement NA18OAR4590415

The Bureau of Reclamation awarded a $1,078,490.19 Cooperative Agreement to the Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District (Northern Water) under the Snow Water Supply Forecasting program (CFDA 15.078) to conduct airborne snow surveys over the Colorado River headwaters. Over the next 3 years, Northern Water will partner with Airborne Snow Observatories, Inc. to perform 3 airborne snow surveys per year during the spring runoff period. The data collected from these surveys, along with ISNOBAL...

This $1,228,743.28 Cooperative Agreement award from the Bureau of Reclamation under the Snow Water Supply Forecasting (CFDA 15.078) program aims to improve water supply forecasts by enhancing snow monitoring through emerging technologies like aerial LiDAR surveys. The project will identify locations with unique snowpack dynamics not captured by existing monitoring networks and evaluate how incorporating LiDAR-derived snow data can improve forecasting accuracy compared to relying solely on...

This Cooperative Agreement award from the U.S. Department of the Interior's Bureau of Reclamation, under the Snow Water Supply Forecasting Program (CFDA 15.078), will develop an advanced snow estimation product using a Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) model. The $1,270,676.70 project, with an award date of January 30, 2025 and a completion date of December 31, 2027, will leverage near-daily CubeSat data, ground observations, and LiDAR snow maps to enhance a process-based distributed hydrologic...

The Bureau of Reclamation awarded a $1,175,151.46 Cooperative Agreement on April 28, 2025 to Oregon State University (OSU) under the Snow Water Supply Forecasting program (CFDA 15.078). The project aims to improve water supply forecasts by fusing high-resolution LiDAR data with in-situ snow measurements to better model snowpack distribution and evolution. Key objectives include: (1) integrating LiDAR (high spatial resolution, low temporal) with snow telemetry and community science data (low...

The University of Arizona, through a $996,526.93 Cooperative Agreement award from the Bureau of Reclamation under the Snow Water Supply Forecasting Program (CFDA 15.078), will use a 40-year snowpack dataset and newly developed regression modeling and machine learning techniques to enhance water supply forecasts across the Colorado River Basin. Specifically, the project will incorporate improved snowpack data and model optimizations into the National Resources Conservation Networks'...

The National Science Foundation awarded a $275,000 Small Business Innovation Research Phase I Project Grant to Applied Research Team Inc. of Denver, Colorado under the NSF Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships program (CFDA 47.084). The grant will support the development of machine learning algorithms to improve snowpack depth and water content retrieval from C-band and X-band radar data. Accurate snowpack information is critical for water management in the Western U.S., but current retrieval...

The Bureau of Reclamation awarded a $1,084,428 Cooperative Agreement to the Regents of the University of Colorado under the Snow Water Supply Forecasting program (CFDA 15.078) to develop a Surface Snow Water Equivalent Data Fusion System (SWE-Fusion) for the western United States. The primary objective is to provide improved surface snow water equivalent estimates to enable better decision-making during anomalous hydrologic conditions like drought and flooding. The University will combine...

The U.S. Department of the Interior's Bureau of Reclamation awarded a $623,849.55 Cooperative Agreement grant to Hydroinnova LLC on February 9, 2024 under the Snow Water Supply Forecasting Program (CFDA 15.078). The 2.5-year project aims to demonstrate and deploy two novel methods for measuring snow water equivalent, a critical parameter for improving water supply forecasts in drought-prone regions of the western U.S. Specifically, Hydroinnova will develop, test, and validate a cosmic ray muon...

The Bureau of Reclamation awarded a $1,060,448 Cooperative Agreement on December 20, 2023, under the Snow Water Supply Forecasting Program (CFDA 15.078) to The Regents of the University of Colorado. This grant aims to improve water supply forecasts by enhancing snow monitoring through the deployment of emerging technologies, such as airborne LiDAR, and better integration of snow data into forecasting models. The project has two sub-awards - one to Oregon State University to assist in...

The Bureau of Reclamation awarded a $1,003,256.99 Cooperative Agreement to Applied Research Team Inc. on January 4, 2024 under the Snow Water Supply Forecasting Program (CFDA 15.078). This project aims to demonstrate how the combination of weather radar data and ground-based monitoring can effectively measure snow water equivalent (SWE) at high resolution. The project will focus on multiple headwater watersheds in the Upper Colorado River Basin and the Rio Grande River Basin, utilizing both...