The NCCOS Competitive Research Program is pleased to announce a Fiscal Year 2024 Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) for its Ecology and Oceanography of Harmful Algal Blooms (ECOHAB) Program. This funding opportunity seeks to support research that will employ holistic multivariate approaches and modeling to advance understanding and prediction of harmful algal blooms (HABs) and their impacts in natural field conditions.

Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) and NOAA scientists deploy a long-range autonomous underwater vehicle in Lake Erie to monitor the harmful algal bloom. Image: Jim Birch, MBARI

HABs must be addressed to ensure public health, build viable and valuable sustainable fisheries, protect living marine resources including threatened and endangered species and their habitats, and effectively manage coastal activities and resources including aquaculture and subsistence use. While considerable progress has been made toward understanding and predicting HAB events and their impacts, the complexity of HABs has become more apparent and new HAB problems have emerged. Thus, basic research into the causes and impacts of HABs and toxins is still essential and will require a multi-disciplinary, holistic approach to advance our current understanding. 

NOAA is soliciting proposals to advance our understanding and prediction of HABs and their impacts. The ECOHAB Program is making $3 million available through this competition to fund three to six projects for the first year and expects to fund selected projects at the level of $200,000 to $1,000,000 a year, for up to five years in duration.

Required letters of intent are due by October 18, 2023. Full applications are due January 31, 2024. View the full NOFO here.