Two CPRA Programs for Coastal Louisiana

For the third year, the Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority (CPRA), in collaboration with The Water Institute of the Gulf, is offering two programs focused on fostering applied research and identifying innovations that will enable CPRA to more effectively protect and restore coastal Louisiana.

The CPRA Applied Research Program provides Louisiana-based researchers with funds to conduct engineering and science research and tool development activities that will enable CPRA to more effectively protect and restore coastal resources.

Research topics that are of particular interest under this Request for Proposal include, but are not limited to:

• Applied social science research and/or tool development activities that will enable CPRA to more effectively account for social indicators of recovery, risk perception, social capital, and socio-economic vulnerability in the Coastal Master Plan.
• Investigations of the effects of nutrients on coastal vegetation and soils, with an emphasis on the development of empirical relationships that may be used in Master Plan predictive modeling.
• Field studies to support the application of soil cohort modeling or similar approaches into predictive models for the Coastal Master Plan and the development of coastwide datasets necessary to support such use of these types of models.
• A comprehensive regional assessment of cost-effective, suitable, and available sediment sources to satisfy the restoration needs (i.e., marsh creation, barrier island restoration, sediment diversions) identified in the Coastal Master Plan.

Proposals should indicate the expected relevance of the research findings to CPRA’s coastal protection and restoration activities. Institutions or organizations that apply must have an office in Louisiana and the principal investigator must be domiciled in Louisiana to be eligible.

It is anticipated that approximately $250,000 will be available to fund an estimated 2-5 research projects, with 1-2 of these having total budgets less than $25,000. The number of awards and their level of funding depend on the quality and relevance of proposals received.

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