Lincoln Institute Of Land Policy

Lincoln Institute of Land Policy is a nonprofit research and policy organization specializing in land policy research and water resource management. Operating from its Phoenix, Arizona headquarters, the organization serves as a think tank that provides technical expertise, research, and collaborative support to federal agencies on matters related to sustainable land use, water data management, and policy dialogue facilitation. The organization's federal engagement focuses primarily on water resource management initiatives, stakeholder engagement, and the development of interoperable data systems for western water management, reflecting its core mission of advancing effective land and resource stewardship.

Through federal contract awards, Lincoln Institute of Land Policy has consistently provided co-sponsorship and event support services to the Bureau of Reclamation, with four documented purchase order contracts ranging from $5,000 each. These contracts, awarded in 2022, 2023, and 2025, supported water-related initiatives including the Water & Tribes Gathering (March 2022), the Water & Tribes Initiative (February 2023), the 2023 CRWUA Water Training Institute Conference (December 2023), and WTI Sponsorship (December 2025). All contracts were firm fixed-price purchase orders with no set-aside designations, indicating open competition. These arrangements reflect the institute's role in facilitating stakeholder engagement and knowledge exchange within the federal government's water resource management community, leveraging the organization's expertise in water policy and tribal water resource needs.

Through federal grant awards, Lincoln Institute of Land Policy has secured substantially larger and more complex engagements demonstrating its technical capacity in water data systems and climate resilience. As prime grantee, the organization received a $400,000 Cooperative Agreement from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (awarded July 2024, completing June 2026) for developing the Climate Adaptive Drought Planning platform, which integrates national datasets on water infrastructure, supply, demand, and socioeconomic trends to support equitable drought risk management. The institute also received a Project Grant from the Bureau of Reclamation (awarded May 2024, completing June 2026) for the Circuit Rider Program, a two-year pilot providing technical water resource expertise to Colorado River Basin tribes lacking dedicated staff capacity. Additionally, Lincoln Institute secured a five-year Cooperative Agreement with the U.S. Geological Survey (Office of Acquisitions and Grants, awarded April 2024, completing March 2029) for the Operation and Enhancement of the GeoConnex System, a geospatial metadata index supporting water resources data discovery and utilization. The institute also received a Project Grant from the Bureau of Reclamation (awarded September 2023, completing September 2026) for developing an interoperable Western water data hub in collaboration with the Western States Water Council. As a sub-grantee, Lincoln Institute has participated in multiple federal research initiatives, including collaborations with the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill on integrating USGS knowledge graph systems with the Proto-Open Knowledge Network framework (awarded February 2025), with Boise State University on sustainable water resource stewardship and mobile water data applications (awarded March 2024), and with the University of Pittsburgh on remote sensing tools for equitable water outcomes (awarded March 2024), as well as a sub-award from the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research related to climate datasets for African hazard forecasting (awarded August 2024).