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NOAA’s National Sea Grant College Program is focused on promoting hazard resilient coastal structures. To accomplish this, communities need access to new technologies that will enable them to forecast, resist and recover from the impacts of coastal disasters (e.g. hurricanes, tsunamis, coastal erosion, etc.) on these structures.

NOAA is interested in receiving proposals for the research and development of Renewable Ocean and Coastal Energy Technology, which will include the following technology areas of focus:

Currently, at many dive sites, NOAA cannot perform “working” dives deeper than 100 feet or using nitrox breathing mixtures due to the OSHA requirement for a multi-lock, multi-person hyperbaric chamber at the dive site. Such chambers are primarily constructed of metal, are heavy, occupy a substantial footprint, and are not easily transported.

The purpose of this topic is to develop innovative products and services to support the development of an environmentally, socially, and economically sustainable marine aquaculture industry. There is a need for products and services that will allow the aquaculture industry to operate in a way that is compatible with healthy marine ecosystems and other users of coastal and ocean resources.

The cornerstone for monitoring the take of animals and the trade of wildlife products is the ability to identify samples to species. This task becomes exceedingly difficult when presented only with a portion of an organism (e.g. shark fins, fish fillets). Modern genetic techniques can now readily identify species by comparing genetic sequences of an unknown sample to reference libraries (i.e. Barcode of Life Database). Though the technology to genetically identify samples is now readily available the required equipment is too cumbersome to readily transport and use in the field.

The purpose of this topic is to develop an innovative product to support the population monitoring of specific whale populations and detect movements of large groups/pods of whales.

The purpose of this topic is to develop a chemically-sensitive membrane to enable characterization of large-scale distributions of small marine tetrapods during longdistance migrations.

Paralytic shellfish poisoning (PSP) is an important public health threat and causes significant economic losses in New England and along the entire west coast of the US including Alaska. Paralytic shellfish poisoning is caused by consuming shellfish that have bioaccumulated saxitoxins which are produced by certain microalgae. The field detection kits used to monitor PSP detect only some of many forms of saxitoxins known as congeners. These kits currently fail to detect important saxitoxin congeners that are toxic to humans and marine mammals.

NOAA seeks development of calibration methods that will lead to quantifiable improvement of the new version of the U.S. Climate Forecast System (CFSv2) model and thereby enhance its value in the private sector. All such methods developed in response to this Solicitation must be suitable for the ongoing calibration of the CFS forecasts by private sector firms in real-time operations.

Among the findings of the America’s Climate Choices Report on Adaptation is that Climate change is occurring… and poses significant risks for — and in many cases is already affecting — a broad range of human and natural systems. The authors of this report call for a new era of climate change science with fundamental, use-inspired research, which not only improves our understanding of the causes and consequences of climate change but also is useful to decision makers at the local, regional, national, and international levels acting to limit and adapt to climate change.