Upper Mississippi River Restoration Long Term Resource Monitoring Element Cooperative Agreement Program

The Long Term Resource Monitoring (LTRM) Element Cooperative Agreement Program.LTRM is the monitoring and research element of the UMRR Program. Overall guidance, funding, and UMRR program responsibility is provided by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE). The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) provides the scientific leadership for LTRM and the long term monitoring and research within LTRM is implemented in collaboration with the five Upper Mississippi River System states (Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, and Wisconsin). A directive outlining the mode of operation and the respective roles of each agency is embodied in a 1988 Memorandum of Agreement. The authority to enter into a cooperative agreement is stipulated in the Water Resources Development Act of 1986. Congress recognized the Upper Mississippi River System (UMRS) as both a nationally significant ecosystem and a nationally significant commercial navigation system. The Upper Midwest Environmental Sciences Center (UMESC) is the USGS facility which administers the LTRM element of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' Upper Mississippi River Restoration program (UMRR). Five Upper Mississippi River System states which house six state-operated field stations provide data collection for water quality, sediment, fish, vegetation, and invertebrates, and land cover/use, and participate in numerous research projects based on these data. This work directly addresses the Secretarial Priority of "working to restore and conserve at least 30% of our lands and waters by 2030".\This program announcement, with its support of UMRR, contributes to science that will enhance and inform the implementation of the Habitat Restoration and Enhancement Project element (HREP) of the UMRR. The UMRR HREP element provides substantial economic benefit to local and regional economies bordering the Mississippi River by increasing consumptive and nonconsumptive recreational opportunities. Research and information developed through this agreement will inform HREP planning, thereby indirectly supporting the Secretarial Priority of 'Advancing President Biden's Investing in America agenda' by providing the sound science on which local and regional managers depend.