Developing skills and Methods for landscape scale inventory and evaluation of cultural resources | P18AS00168

Opportunity Information: Apply for P18AS00168

The grant opportunity titled "Developing skills and Methods for landscape scale inventory and evaluation of cultural resources" (Funding Opportunity Number P18AS00168) is a National Park Service cooperative agreement intended to build hands-on, career-focused training for University of New Mexico archaeology and anthropology students while advancing landscape-scale cultural resource work in a National Park Service setting. Framed as a cooperative effort rather than a simple pass-through grant, it emphasizes close coordination between the federal partner and the University of New Mexico team to produce practical deliverables and strengthen professional capacity in cultural resource management.

At the center of the project is a professional development pipeline that immerses students in real-world methods used to assess cultural resources across large areas rather than at the level of single sites. Students would work alongside the University of New Mexico Office of Contract Archaeology (OCA), gaining field and analytical experience tied directly to park management needs. The overall goal is to increase student knowledge, skills, and abilities in landscape-scale cultural resource assessment, which typically requires integrating archaeological data, environmental context, and management concerns into a coherent planning and monitoring framework.

The work plan described in the opportunity highlights several connected components. One major task is the continued development and implementation of a landscape-scale database that brings together cultural and natural resource information for VALL. This database is intended to support broad inventory, evaluation, and long-term decision-making by organizing data in a way that can be updated, queried, and used for prioritization and planning. Alongside the database effort, the project calls for conducting cultural resource inventories and establishing baseline conditions, essentially creating a starting point for future monitoring and management. That baseline data is important because it allows managers to track change over time, identify emerging threats, and measure the effects of impacts like visitation, erosion, or wildfire.

Another key deliverable is the development of cultural resource sensitivity modeling tools. These tools are meant to help guide where and how inventory should be conducted (inventory sampling), estimate where cultural resources are more likely to be located (resource location probability), and evaluate vulnerability to hazards such as fire and erosion (fire/erosion susceptibility). In practical terms, sensitivity models help managers focus limited survey and protection resources on the places most likely to contain cultural materials or most at risk, improving efficiency and supporting proactive management at a landscape scale.

In terms of eligibility and funding details, the opportunity is categorized as discretionary funding and uses a cooperative agreement instrument, reflecting the expectation of substantial involvement by the National Park Service in project execution. Eligible applicants are limited to public and state-controlled institutions of higher education, which aligns with the University of New Mexico student-training focus described in the narrative. The Department of the Interior, National Park Service is the sponsoring agency, with an award ceiling of $400,000 and an expectation of a single award. The posting date is April 18, 2018, with an original closing date of April 27, 2018, indicating a short application window typical of some targeted cooperative agreements.

Overall, the opportunity combines workforce development and applied cultural resource management: it aims to train emerging professionals through direct participation in building data systems, performing inventories, establishing monitoring baselines, and developing predictive and risk-based models that support long-term stewardship of cultural resources across an entire landscape.

• The Department of the Interior, National Park Service in the natural resources sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Developing skills and Methods for landscape scale inventory and evaluation of cultural resources" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 15.945.
• This funding opportunity was created on Apr 18, 2018.
• Applicants must submit their applications by Apr 27, 2018. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Each selected applicant is eligible to receive up to $400,000.00 in funding.
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 1 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: Public and State controlled institutions of higher education.

Apply for P18AS00168

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