Review of Vegetation Distributions in Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park from Historic Aerial Imagery

The summary for the Review of Vegetation Distributions in Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park from Historic Aerial Imagery grant is detailed below. This summary states who is eligible for the grant, how much grant money will be awarded, current and past deadlines, Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance (CFDA) numbers, and a sampling of similar government grants. Verify the accuracy of the data FederalGrants.com provides by visiting the webpage noted in the Link to Full Announcement section or by contacting the appropriate person listed as the Grant Announcement Contact. If any section is incomplete, please visit the website for the National Park Service, which is the U.S. government agency offering this grant.

Review of Vegetation Distributions in Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park from Historic Aerial Imagery:

This Funding Announcement is not a request for applications. This announcement is to provide public notice of the National Park Service (NPS), intention to fund the following project activities without competition.

ABSTRACT
Funding Announcement P15AS00998
Project Title Review of Vegetation Distributions in Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park from Historic Aerial Imagery
Recipient University of Alaska Anchorage
Total Anticipated Award Amount $13281.00
Cost Share 0
Anticipated Length of Agreement 3 years
Anticipated Period of Performance 3 years
Award Instrument CESU Task Agreement
Statutory Authority 54 USC 101702(a)
CFDA # and Title 15.945, Cooperative Research and Training Programs – Resources of the National Park System

Single Source Justification Criteria Cited Unique Qualifications
Point of Contact Erica Cordeiro


OVERVIEW

(1) Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park (KLGO) traverses habitats ranging from intertidal to temperate rain forest to alpine tundra and glacial ice. During the past 110 years, since the time of the gold rush, climate change, isostatic rebound, floods, avalanches, and succession have changed the landscape dramatically. The NPS has undertaken a study to describe, quantify, and interpret these changes by: 1) creating a set of repeat photographs based on historic photographic material that captures glacier and vegetation patterns; 2) creating a GIS based historic land-cover / land-form map of a portion of the Chilkoot Unit by interpreting and digitizing aerial photos from the middle of the 20th century; and 3) set the stage for conducting a change-detection analysis of ice extent and plant communities comparing modern (2012-13) and historic (1940’s – 50’s) aerial photographs within the park’s Chilkoot Unit.
(2)
(3) The goal of this project is to detect change in the distribution of major vegetation types over the last 60 years in the Chilkoot Unit of KLGO. As climate exerts primary control on the broad-scale distribution and abundance of plant species, change in climate can produce a delayed but commensurate change in vegetation. Assuming landscape-scale vegetation change is present and detectable in KLGO, the project will document the magnitude and direction of this change by comparing the position of elevational treeline and shrubline on remotely-sensed imagery captured in 1948, 1979 and 2003/2005. Historic aerial photography dating from July 6 -11, 1948 (U.S. Navy BAR00 project, 1:20,000, pixel ground resolution of 1.4 m) and August 11, 1979 (Alaska High-Altitude Photography, 1:60,000, pixel ground resolution of 2.25 m) is available for the entirety of the Chilkoot Unit. Satellite imagery captured by the IKONOS-2 satellite on August 12, 2005 at a scale of 1:2,000 and pixel ground resolution of 1 m (Tobler 1987) is also available for the Chilkoot Unit; an orthorectified mosaic of aerial photographs taken on July 1, 2003 at a scale of 1:12,000 and pixel ground resolution of 0.15 m is available for the trail corridor. Landcover has been digitized on this imagery, using the higher-resolution aerial photography where available (Flagstad and Boucher 2015). These recently-delineated landcover classes will be collapsed to Level I of the Alaska Vegetation Classification (Forest, Shrub, Herbaceous; Viereck et al. 1992) to allow comparison among image sets.


STATEMENT OF JOINT OBJECTIVES/PROJECT MANAGEMENT PLAN

RECIPIENT INVOLVEMENT
University of Alaska, Anchorage Alaska Natural Heritage program agrees to:
• Orthorectification, georeferencing and mosaicking for both the 1948 and 1979 aerial image sets, including delivery of digital products to the NPS.
• Manual digitization of tree and shrubline for both historic image sets, including delivery of digital products to the NPS.
• Extraction of tree and shrubline from current landcover map
• Addition of repeat photography locations to the geodatabase with relative path hyperlinks, including delivery of digital products to the NPS.
• Complete change detection analysis from 1948 to 1979 and 2003/2005
• Develop a final report evaluating the changes in landcover over the period of available imagery.

NATIONAL PARK SERVICE INVOLVEMENT

. NPS agrees to:
• Work collaboratively with AKNHP to identify photos and geographical locations that show historic and current vegetation conditions and types where possible as a way of “ground truthing” the broader change detection work. These specific locations will allow NPS and AKNHP to adaptively adjust the digitized tree and shrublines.
• Work with AKNHP to integrate already completed maps of changed glacial and ice extents into the analysis of altered landscapes.
• Develop and provide historic/modern photo pairs including location information and other detailed metadata. The final report outlining the methodology and limitations of the repeat photographs will also be provided.
• Provide geodatabase of georeferenced aerial imagery and metadata
• Develop and provide GIS coverages with vegetation classified to general Viereck Classification Level based on historic aerial imagery.
• Integrate developed GIS coverages, geodatabases, metadata, and other GIS products into the permanent NPS data set
• Format the final report to NPS Natural Resource Publication standards, obtain professional peer reviews, facilitate any required edits, and publish the final report into the Integrated Resource Management Application.
Develop interpretive materials based on the study results for use on NPS sites and in interpretive programs.


SINGLE-SOURCE JUSTIFICATION

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR
SINGLE SOURCE POLICY REQUIREMENTS

Department of the Interior Policy (505 DM 2) requires a written justification which explains why competition is not practicable for each single-source award. The justification must address one or more of the following criteria as well as discussion of the program legislative history, unique capabilities of the proposed recipient, and cost-sharing contribution offered by the proposed recipient, as applicable.


In order for an assistance award to be made without competition, the award must satisfy one or more of the following criteria:

(1) Unsolicited Proposal – The proposed award is the result of an unsolicited assistance application which represents a unique or innovative idea, method, or approach which is not the subject of a current or planned contract or assistance award, but which is deemed advantageous to the program objectives;

(2) Continuation – The activity to be funded is necessary to the satisfactory completion of, or is a continuation of an activity presently being funded, and for which competition would have a significant adverse effect on the continuity or completion of the activity;

(3) Legislative intent – The language in the applicable authorizing legislation or legislative history clearly indicates Congress’ intent to restrict the award to a particular recipient of purpose;

(4) Unique Qualifications – The applicant is uniquely qualified to perform the activity based upon a variety of demonstrable factors such as location, property ownership, voluntary support capacity, cost-sharing ability if applicable, technical expertise, or other such unique qualifications;

(5) Emergencies – Program/award where there is insufficient time available (due to a compelling and unusual urgency, or substantial danger to health or safety) for adequate competitive procedures to be followed.


NPS did not solicit full and open competition for this award based the following criteria:
Unique Qualifications