Quantifying Drift Invertebrates in River and Estuary Systems

Habitat restoration, improvement, and creation in rivers, streams, and estuaries are key elements for the recovery of salmon, trout, and other critical fish species in the United States. Millions of dollars are spent annually on activities such as manipulating flow regimes, adding structural elements such as wood or rock, reconnecting rivers with their floodplains, and restoring wetlands. A critical aspect in evaluating the effectiveness of these habitat manipulations is understanding how they influence the food resources available to critical fish species targeted for recovery and protection. Yet despite its importance, quantification of food resources has proven difficult. 

The Bureau of Reclamation, in collaboration with other federal agencies (NOAA-National Marine Fisheries Service, U.S. Geological Survey, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers) is seeking a way to economically detect, count, and identify zooplankton and drift invertebrates in river and estuary systems. Problems identified that prevent the simple transfer of oceanographic techniques to rivers and streams are higher water velocities, turbidity, higher surface/depth ratio, and costs (time and money). 

This Challenge requires only a written proposal.

A brief video describing this Challenge can be found here.

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Accurate food counts, such as zooplankton and drift invertebrates, are instrumental in fish habitat evaluation and restoration in our rivers and streams. Although technology has been developed for automated detection and identification of zooplankton and drift invertebrates in oceanographic settings, they have not been developed for the unique environmental conditions in rivers and estuaries.  High flow rates and turbidity cause problems with automated visual systems used today. The main obstacle in estuaries is turbidity while the main obstacle in river systems is flow velocity.  In addition, the horizontal nature of rivers invokes problems not encountered in deep ocean waters (e.g., sunlight effects at the surface of water and the mixing of food sources throughout the water column in rivers due to turbulence as opposed to more stratified food webs in ocean waters).  We would like to identify devices/methods that can detect, count, and identify zooplankton and drift invertebrates in an economical way in rivers and estuary systems. There is potential for future collaboration with the Seeker in developing and testing winning solutions. 

This is a Theoretical Challenge that requires only a written proposal to be submitted.  The Challenge award will be contingent upon theoretical evaluation of the proposal by the Bureau of Reclamation (Seeker). The Seeker has a total prize pool budget of $30,000 to pay the top three submission(s) that meet or exceed the criteria below, an award of $10,000 each.  No awards are guaranteed unless they meet or exceed the criteria, and more than one award is not guaranteed.  If only a single submission meets or exceeds the criteria, the prize award may be as high as $15,000. 

To receive an award, the Solvers will not have to transfer their exclusive IP rights to the Seeker.  Instead, they will grant to the Seeker a non-exclusive license to practice their solutions. See the Challenge Specific Agreement  and the Federal Register Notice for full details. 

The Seeker believes there might be a potential for future collaboration with awarded Solver(s), although such collaboration is not guaranteed.  The Seeker may also encourage Solver(s) to further develop and test their winning submissions through subsequent round(s) of competition.  Solvers should mention if they have the ability for subsequent design and development phases and would be willing to consider future collaborations and/or subsequent competitions.

About The Seeker:  The Bureau of Reclamation is an agency of the United States Federal Government with a mission to manage, develop, and protect water and related resources in an environmentally and economically sound manner in the interest of the American public (http://www.usbr.gov/).  

Submissions to this Challenge must be received by 11:59 PM (US Eastern Time) on November 16, 2015.  Late submissions will not be considered.