NSF Engines Development Award: Advancing precision forestry and rangeland technologies (MT, ID, ND, SD, WA, WY)

本届区域创新引擎发展奖重点评选精准林业和牧场管理。它将通过将技术、工具和数据应用于新兴的精准林业和牧场管理领域，成为北落基山脉/北部平原地区的新经济驱动力。该项目由蒙大拿大学领导，汇集了来自平原大学创新联盟、蒙大拿州木材产品协会、自然保护协会、美国林业局、土地管理局和美国印第安人高等教育联盟的研究人员和合作伙伴，以及州气候办公室、蒙大拿州州长办公室的经济和劳动力办公室以及风险投资公司。通过公共机构、部落社区大学和私营企业之间的这一创新伙伴关系，该小组将创建一个充满活力的经济发展生态系统和一个专家知识库，以解决与土地管理有关的与国家和全球相关的关键问题。作为这一努力的一个关键方面，发展奖将展示应用最新和新兴技术来管理土地，以最大限度地提高联邦、部落和私人森林和牧场的经济效益，同时将火灾、干旱和洪水等生态影响降至最低。激光雷达、自主航空系统、卫星图像、传感器阵列和预测建模等技术可以通过改善可供土地管理者使用的数据来增加森林和牧场的产量。这将使政策和决策更加精准，并改善环境风险缓解。发展奖的一个重要目标是与部落社区和部落社区大学结成伙伴关系，依靠他们在土著知识方面的知识和专长。伙伴们致力于将西方和部落的科学传统和方法纳入我们的工作，转变研究范式，纳入历史上被排斥的土著社区的土地管理做法，这将为土地管理做法带来新的见解。来自公立大学和TCU的研究人员将与我们的工业和联邦合作伙伴合作，开发转化为商业用途的新技术，创造支持这一重要地区资产所需的经济发展和劳动力机会。我们的劳动力发展合作伙伴将确定该部门当前和预计的劳动力需求，并调整、设计、实施和扩展新的或现有的培训途径。该发展奖将使团队能够参与地区性的、协作的规划过程，为实现这些目标准备未来的引擎。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This Regional Innovation Engines Development Award is focused on precision forestry and rangeland management. It will be a new economic driver in the Northern Rockies/Northern Plains region by applying technology, tools, and data to the emerging field of precision forestry and rangeland management. This project, led by the University of Montana, brings together researchers and partners from the Plains University Innovation Alliance, the Montana Wood Products Association, the Nature Conservancy, the US Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management, and the American Indian Higher Education Consortium in addition to state Climate Offices, economic and workforce offices in the Montana Governor's Office, and venture capital firms. Through this innovative partnership between public institutions, Tribal Community Universities, and private industry, the team will create a dynamic economic development ecosystem and an expert knowledge base that will address critical issues related to land management with national and global relevance. As a key aspect of the effort, the Development Award will demonstrate the application of recent and emerging technologies to manage the land to maximize the economic benefit of federal, Tribal, and private forests and rangelands while minimizing ecological impacts such as fire, drought, and flood. Technologies such as lidar, autonomous aerial systems, satellite imagery, sensor arrays, and predictive modeling can increase forest and rangeland production by improving the available data for use by land managers. This will enable more precise policy and decision-making and improve environmental risk mitigation. A critical goal of the Development Award is to partner with tribal communities and Tribal Community Universities, relying upon their knowledge and expertise in Indigenous ways of knowing. The partners are committed to incorporating Western and tribal scientific traditions and methodologies into our work, shifting the research paradigm to include the land management practices of historically excluded Indigenous communities, which will bring new insight into land management practices. Working with our industrial and federal partners, researchers from public universities and TCUs will develop new technologies translated into commercial use, creating economic development and workforce opportunities needed to support this vital regional asset. Our workforce development partners will identify current and projected workforce needs in this sector and adapt, design, implement and expand new or existing pathways to training. This Development Award will enable the team to engage in a regional, collaborative planning process to prepare a future Engine to meet these goals.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.