NSF Convergence Accelerator Track E: The BlueGreen Action Platform, connecting communities upstream and downstream to improve nitrogen management

A strong Blue Economy requires healthy watersheds. The Blue-Green Action Platform, BlueGAP, connects people and organizations across watersheds to address economic and health challenges caused by nitrogen pollution in their water and local environment. Nitrogen pollution of water may cause severe health problems.

Nitrogen pollution also harms local waters in a watershed, leading to high concentrations of unwanted bacteria, algae, and plants that can collapse entire ecosystems. BlueGAP brings new solutions to nitrogen management by providing information, expanding communication networks, and fostering community action. BlueGAP’s team includes a diverse group of academic, non-governmental, and quasi-governmental organizations, and community and private sector organizations.

They are partnering with Champions, initially from six community organizations from 3 differently sized pilot watersheds in Iowa, Florida, and the US Virgin Islands, to co-design and build capacity across watersheds. It couples two human-centric components, an Alliance and an Academy, with the virtual platform. BlueGAP contributes to improving the health of marine biological resources, water quality, and human health using information that is presently not readily accessible to the public.

BlueGAP’s vision is to stimulate the Blue and Green Economies by accelerating convergence on best practices for nitrogen management. BlueGAP focuses on four objectives: 1. Advance human-centered design of solutions to pollution, 2.

Integrate storytelling with cutting edge scientific evidence to identify leverage points for action, 3. Create educational materials to impact nitrogen management and inform communities, and 4. Establish a sustainability plan for BlueGAP.

The core of BlueGAP is a systems model focused on local experiences and knowledge to show people the costs and benefits of actions at specific leverage points of nitrogen management. BlueGAP’s human-centered convergence framework fosters coalitions to solve problems that communities cannot solve by themselves.

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.