Prize Competitions News
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Launch
Reclamation launches new prize competition looking for aquatic vegetation management solutions
The Bureau of Reclamation is launching a new prize competition seeking sustainable solutions to manage aquatic vegetation in canals. Winning ideas will share in a total prize purse of $345,000. Read More →
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Awards
Reclamation awards $250,000 to winners of the More Water, Less Concentrate Challenge
The Bureau of Reclamation selected winners for the More Water Less Concentrate Challenge, a prize competition that sought to develop innovative, affordable, and environmentally sound solutions to reduce the volume of concentrate and generate more usable water from inland desalination plants. Read More →
Reclamation awards $500,000 to winners of the Snowcast ShowdownThe Bureau of Reclamation selected winners for the Snowcast Showdown, a prize competition for improved snowpack water estimating techniques throughout the West. Read More →
Reclamation awards $150,000 to winners of AMPS Challenge improving reliability in hydropower plantsThe Bureau of Reclamation selected two top solutions for the Automated Maintenance of Protection Systems prize competitions. Read More →
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Launch
Reclamation launches new prize competition looking for improved precipitation measurement devices.
The Bureau of Reclamation is launching a new prize competition seeking new and improved ground-based precipitation devices. These devices should be reliable, accurate, low maintenance, and able to operate in remote areas in extreme weather conditions. Read More →
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Prize Recap
May 2022 Prize Competitions Recap
In the Spotlight: Snowcast Showdown: This competition launched on December 7, 2021 and seeks improved methods to estimate the snow water equivalent over the Western United States using near real-time data sources. Read More →
January 2022 Prize Competitions Recap
In the Spotlight: Snowcast Showdown: This competition launched on December 7, 2021 and seeks improved methods to estimate the snow water equivalent over the Western United States using near real-time data sources. Read More →
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Awards
May 2022 AMPS Fact Sheet
Read more about the status of the competition and the Phase II competitors.
Reclamation selectes phase I winners of river modeling prize competition
Read more about the status of the competition and the Phase II competitors.
The Bureau of Reclamation announced the phase I Divide and Conquer Challenge winners. This challenge seeks to significantly improve the execution speed of numerical models that simulate river hydraulics, sediment erosion, transport, and deposition in rivers and streams.
Reclamation announces Guardians of the Reservoir phase two winners
Read more about the status of the competition and the Phase II competitors.
The Bureau of Reclamation announced the phase two winners of the Guardians of the Reservoir competition. The three winning teams advance to the third and final phase of the competition.
The competition challenges competitors to design solutions for removing sedimentation deposits in reservoirs. Sedimentation builds up reducing a reservoir’s storage capacity potentially preventing a dam from functioning properly.
Reclamation awards $435,000 in prize competition seeking improved streamflow forecasting methods
Reclamation has selected 10 winners from the yearlong Streamflow Forecast Rodeo prize competition. Contestants developed methods for making 10-day streamflow forecasts for multiple locations across the Western United States and entries were judged based on how closely those predictions matched the actual streamflow. Winners will share the $435,000 in prize money. Read More →
Reclamation awards $80,000 in prize competition seeking to improve reliability in hydropower facilities
The Bureau of Reclamation selected seven teams to share $80,000 in prize awards as phase one winners in the Automated Maintenance of Protection Systems Challenge. This competition challenged the public to develop innovative solutions that make power systems more reliable by automating maintenance testing of protective relays and transformers. Read More →
Reclamation awards $100,000 for canal safety idea selected through prize competition
The Bureau of Reclamation announced the winner of the Canal Safety Challenge today. Isotrope, LLC of Medfield, Massachusetts, will receive $100,000 for its innovative idea to improve canal safety. Read More → Visit Canal Safety Challenge
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Launch
Reclamation launches prize competition seeking new ideas to improve sediment modeling in river systems
WASHINGTON - The Bureau of Reclamation is launching a new prize competition to improve the model currently used to calculate the sediment transport rate in a river system. It is specifically looking for solutions to improve the execution speed of models that simulate river hydraulics, sediment erosion, transport, and deposition. Read More →
Visit Divide and Conquer: Modeling Large-Scale Hydraulics Faster
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Awards
Reclamation awards $125,000 in first phase of prize competition seeking new inland purification methods to increase usable water
WASHINGTON – The Bureau of Reclamation selected five teams to share $125,000 in the first phase of the More Water Less Concentrate Prize Competition. This competition challenged the public to develop innovative solutions to reduce byproducts that require additional treatment and disposal and increase freshwater supplies from inland desalination plants. Read More →
Visit More Water, Less Concentrate
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Prize Recap
Reclamation Prize Competition Updates
Visit Reclamation’s Prize Competitions Recap for the latest on our competitions! Read More
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Awards
Three finalists share $150,000 to reduce drownings in canals
(June 10, 2021) The Bureau of Reclamation selected the Canal Safety Challenge finalists to test their prototypes to reduce accidents and drownings around canals. The Greenfields Irrigation District, Isotope LLC, and WGM Group, Inc will each receive $50,000 for testing at the Reclamation Technical Service Center's Hydraulics Laboratory in Denver, Colorado. Read More →
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Launch
Reclamation launches prize competition to improve reliability in hydropower facilities
(March 17, 2021) WASHINGTON — The Bureau of Reclamation launched the Automated Maintenance of Protection Systems Challenge to make power systems more reliable by automating maintenance testing of protective relays and associated potential and current transformers. The prize competition will consist of two phases and has a total prize pool of $250,000. Read More →
Automated Maintenance of Protection System (AMPS) Challenge
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Launch
Reclamation launches prize competition to better field evaluate composite structures
(March 04, 2021) WASHINGTON – The Bureau of Reclamation is launching a new prize competition seeking new tools to evaluate the condition of fiber-reinforced polymer composite structures non-destructively. Read More →
Imperfection Detection: Detect Me If You Can
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Launch
New prize competition seeks to improve reliability of water deliveries for America's crops by reducing water seeping from canals
(February 04, 2021) WASHINGTON – The Bureau of Reclamation is launching a prize competition to reduce the amount of water seeping from canal infrastructure throughout the West. The Water America's Crops Challenge seeks to improve water delivery efficiency and minimize canal failures for America's agriculture by reducing water seeping from a canal into the ground. Read More →
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Awards
Second sub-seasonal climate forecast rodeo provides potential solutions that may provide more time to prepare for weather extremes
(January 13, 2021) WASHINGTON – The Bureau of Reclamation announced the selection of 24 overall winning solutions from around the world to share $352,000 in the second sub-seasonal climate forecast rodeo. Read More →
Visit the Rodeo II Sub-Seasonal Climate Forecast Prize Competition
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Awards
Reclamation moves five ideas forward in prize competition to help improve sediment removal in reservoirs
(December 10, 2020) WASHINGTON – The Bureau of Reclamation has selected five projects to each receive $75,000 through phase one of the Guardians of the Reservoir prize competition. The contest was seeking new ways to effectively and continually manage sediment in reservoirs. Read More →
Visit the Guardians of the Reservoir Prize Competition -
Launch
Reclamation launches prize competition seeking new inland purification methods to increase usable water
(October 28, 2020) WASHINGTON - WASHINGTON - The Bureau of Reclamation is launching a prize competition seeking innovative, affordable and environmentally sound solutions to improve inland purification processes for brackish water. The new techniques should produce more usable water while reducing salt byproducts that require additional treatment and disposal. Read More →
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Launch
Reclamation seeks ideas to make canals safer to reduce drownings and accidents
(October 22, 2020) WASHINGTON - The Bureau of Reclamation is launching a new prize competition to improve public safety around canals throughout the United States. Reclamation maintains approximately 8,000 miles of canals in the Western United States and more than 1,000 of those miles are in urban areas. These canals in urban areas have higher risk of drownings. Read More →
Visit Canal Safety
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Launch
Reclamation launches prize competition to improve streamflow forecasting
(August 28, 2020) The Bureau of Reclamation is launching a prize competition to improve short-term streamflow forecasts. Evolving data science such as artificial intelligence, machine learning and high-performance computing are starting to be used in streamflow forecasting. The Streamflow Forecast Rodeo competition seeks to spur innovation using these technologies. Read More →
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Awards
Reclamation selects five projects in prize competition that seeks to extend the life of water infrastructure
(March 3, 2020) Five projects were selected as winners for the Bureau of Reclamation's Rust Busters Stage II, Phase 1 Prize Competition. The contest sought ideas to extend the life of water infrastructure by reducing corrosion, in particular rust, of its steel structures. These five projects will now proceed to Phase 2 of the competition. Read More →
Visit the Rust Busters Prize Competition -
Awards
Reclamation awards $75,000 for ideas that lower cost of continuous streamflow monitoring
(January 21, 2020) The Bureau of Reclamation partnered with the U.S. Geological Survey for a prize competition seeking innovative ideas to significantly reduce the cost of continuous streamflow monitoring compared to current methods while also increasing the availability of streamflow data. Accurate and reliable records from continuous streamflow monitoring stations are vital to water resources planning, design, management and research. Of the 40 potential cost-saving solutions received, five winners were selected to share a total prize pool of $75,000.
"A number of compelling ideas for continuous streamflow monitoring were received," said David Raff, Reclamation’s science advisor. "This demonstrates the continued benefit of soliciting new and novel ideas from the broader public through competitions." Read More →
Visit Streamflow Monitoring
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Launch
Reclamation launches prize competition to protect steel structures
(August 22, 2019) The Bureau of Reclamation is launching a new prize competition today, dubbed Rust Busters. This competition is stage 2 of a long-term corrosion protection competition that seeks new, improved or lower-cost solution that can be prototyped to better protect steel structures from corrosion. Many hydraulic steel structures need continuous corrosion protection, but some past methods have been abandoned due to safety and environmental concerns. Many newer protection methods do not last as long, are less effective or come with much higher costs.
This competition builds upon stage 1, completed in 2017, which sought written theoretical ideas for long-term corrosion protection for hydraulic steel structures. Stage 2 hopes to advance those ideas from the Stage 1 effort and seeks additional concepts that solvers can prototype and submit for further testing and evaluation as part of the competition. Read More →
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Launch
Reclamation launches forecast prize competition
(July 27, 2019) The Bureau of Reclamation is launching a new prize competition, Sub-seasonal Climate Forecast Rodeo II. It builds upon an earlier prize competition to advance temperature and precipitation forecasts for the three-to-four and five-to-six-week periods. Skillful sub-seasonal forecasting 15 to 45 days in the future has proven difficult because it bridges short-term forecasting, where initial conditions primarily determine upcoming weather, and long-term forecasting, where slowly varying factors such as sea surface temperatures and soil moisture become more important.
"While we learned a lot and saw an improvement in these sub-seasonal climate forecast in the first competition, more can be done," said Reclamation Science Advisor David Raff, PhD. "Advancements in forecasts will allow Reclamation and its partners make more informed water management decisions." Read More →
Visit Rodeo II: Sub-Seasonal Climate Forecasting
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Watch the Kick Off Video:
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Awards
Reclamation selects winners of competition to develop solutions for removing sediment from reservoirs
(July 11, 2019) Reclamation launched a prize competition seeking new and improved techniques for the removal of sediment and transport of that sediment in a cost-effective manner. Of the 40 potential solutions received, six winners will share $75,000. Sedimentation is a significant problem for aging reservoirs as it reduces the amount of water that can be stored. It also impacts the dam outlets, water quality, recreation and downstream habitat.
"While sediment will never go away, we can seek to minimize its impact and allow the reservoirs to store water for agriculture and cities and minimize the risk of flooding," said competition co-lead Jennifer Bountry. "The solutions have the potential to be cost-effective while preserving and sustaining the objectives of the reservoir." Read More →
Visit Sediment Removal Techniques for Reservoir Sustainability
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Awards
Five winners selected to receive $80,000 in Pathogen Monitoring Prize Competition from the Bureau of Reclamation
(March 28, 2019) To optimize the design and operations of advanced water treatment facilities the Bureau of Reclamation completed a prize competition and has selected five submissions to share $80,000 in prizes in the Pathogen Monitoring Stage 1 Challenge, with half of the prize purse contributed by Xylem, Inc. The team of Hannah Safford and Heather Bischel, both of Davis, California, was selected to receive the top prize of $40,000 in this competition.Read More →
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