BACKGROUND

Business for Water Stewardship (BWS) is a Bonneville Environmental Foundation (BEF) program that helps businesses work collaboratively with community stakeholders to advance solutions that ensure people, economies, and ecosystems have enough clean water to flourish. 

Since its inception, BWS has worked with corporate partners to invest over $50 million in over 500 projects that help communities across North America restore critical fish and wildlife habitat, improve water quality, mitigate the impacts of flooding and a changing climate, and build resiliency for agricultural, industrial, and municipal water users.   

OPPORTUNITY

BWS and its corporate partners recognize that irrigated agriculture is vital to developing and implementing innovative water management solutions that can help reduce water stress for communities and ecosystems. Nearly 80% of diversions of freshwater in North America are used for agriculture, and system losses from diversion to farm can be as much as 70%. BWS has supported dozens of projects that improve the efficiency of water delivery systems and on-farm irrigation, give water managers and farmers better decision-making tools, and implement new water management systems that incentivize conservation and multi-benefit approaches to water allocations.  

This Innovation in Irrigation Water Management – Request for Information (RFI) seeks to further advance partnerships with irrigators, water managers, and the agricultural technology sector by identifying new opportunities to apply and scale innovative approaches to water management.

Based on responses to this RFI, BWS may select some respondents to provide more detailed proposals that will be considered for funding through corporate partnerships.  

RFI TIMELINE 

ELIGIBILITY 

Focal Geography

BWS seeks partners with innovative water management technologies and strategies for deployment in North American watersheds, particularly those that fall within in the Minor Basins listed in the chart below.

PRIORITY LOCATIONS & WATERSHEDS 

Region	Major Basin	Minor Basin
East	Mid Atlantic Region (HUC 02) South Atlantic Gulf (HUC 03)	Upper Chesapeake Bay (HUC 0206) Potomac River (HUC 0207) Lower Chesapeake Bay (HUC 0208) Edisto-Santee (HUC 0305) Santee River Basin (HUC 030501) Apalachicola (HUC 031300)
Central	Ohio Region (HUC 05) Tennessee River (HUC 06) Missouri River Basin (HUC10)	Western Lake Erie Basin (HUC 041000) Upper Ohio-Little Kanawha (HUC 050302) Scioto River Basin (HUC 050600) Lower Cumberland (HUC 051302) Iowa River (HUC 070802) Platte Basin (HUC1020) Missouri-Little Sioux Basin (HUC 1023) Missouri-Nishnabotna (HUC 102400) Lower Missouri-Blackwater (HUC 103001) Neosho River (HUC 1107) Sabine River (HUC 1201) Neches River (HUC 1202) Trinity River (HUC 1203) Upper Trinity (HUC 120301)
West	Upper Colorado Region (HUC 14) Lower Colorado Region (HUC 15) Great Basin (HUC 16)	Salt River Basin (HUC 1506) Verde River Basin (HUC 150602) Middle Columbia (HUC 1707)

For more information on hydrologic unit codes (HUC), please visit the USGS at https://water.usgs.gov/themes/hydrologic-units/

Desired Outcomes

Through this RFI, BWS seeks to identify partners that can advance novel approaches in one or more of the following ways:

• Reduce water consumption
• Improve water management through new technologies and incentives 
• Improve water quality by reducing non-point source pollution 
• Restore instream flows 
• Replenish groundwater and recharge aquifers

FUNDING PARAMETERS – DURAtION, SCALE & COST

BWS leverages millions in corporate grants to support water conservation projects. These funds, driven by corporate sustainability goals, are provided by companies with no interest in utilizing the conserved water.

BWS will consider projects that meet the following parameters:

• Duration: Projects must provide measurable and verifiable Volumetric Water Benefit (VWB) through 2030, at a minimum*
• Volume: Projects must generate a minimum of 50 Million Gallons per Year (MGY)
• Cost: This funding opportunity seeks to identify and support projects that can generate VWB below $11,250 MGY**
• Funding Levels: Funding opportunities between the range of $350,000 and $6 million will be considered.

*Please see Resources below for more information on Volumetric Water Benefit Accounting.

**Cost per MGY is a function of total project expenditures, including implementation, operations, and reporting, divided by annual VWB in MGY. 

Eligible Organizations

BWS will consider potential partnership opportunities with any individual or organization with the capacity to implement voluntary innovative water management approaches within the specified geography. This includes, but is not limited to, the following: non-profit organizations; irrigation and water conservancy districts and companies; flood control districts; municipal governments and water providers; water control districts; Native American Tribes; private landowners; basin collaboratives; businesses; and state agencies.

BWS does not support organizations whose policies or actions discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, religion, gender identity, sexual orientation, age or disability.

BWS does not support projects designed to mitigate legal or regulatory compliance obligations or that are tied to ongoing legal or regulatory action.

HOW TO RESPOND

All information must be submitted via the Innovation in Irrigation Water Management RFI Online Form.

Responses should include the following:

• Section 1: Organizational information (Required)
• Section 2: Short Form – High level project overview (Required)
• Section 3: Long Form – Detailed project information (Optional)

For programmatic approaches that propose to work across multiple locations within a major basin listed in the Priority Locations & Watersheds chart, please submit a single RFI response.

For programmatic approaches that propose to work across multiple locations and more than one of the major basins listed in the Priority Locations & Watersheds chart, please submit a different response for each major basin that you are proposing to work in.

 

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RESOURCES 

RFI Support

Organizations interested in responding to this RFI are encouraged to: 

• Contact BWSproposal@b-e-f.org to seek any necessary clarifications and discuss this opportunity in greater detail. 
• Review Volumetric Water Benefit Accounting (VWBA) manual for more information and methodologies: Volumetric Water Benefit Accounting (VWBA): A Method For Implementing and Valuing Water Stewardship Activities | World Resources Institute
• Review Volumetric Water Benefit Accounting (VWBA): A Practical Guide to Implementing Water Replenishment Targets