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Hawaiian shorelines and near-shore waters have long been used for cultural activities, food gathering and fishing, and recreation. As seascapes are physically altered by changing climate, the ways in which people experience these environments will likely change as well. Local perspectives of how seascapes are changing over time can help managers better understand and manage these areas for both natural persistence and human use. For this project, researchers conducted interviews and surveys of surfers and other ocean users to gather observations and perceptions of change over time at Hilo Bay, Hawaiʻi. They combined these results with historical data on public beach use and biophysical data from monitoring buoys...
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The beaches of the Hawaiian Islands attract nearly 9 million visitors each year, who inject around $15.6 billion into the state’s economy and support almost 200,000 jobs. Beyond their economic importance, Hawaiian beaches are also culturally and ecologically valuable. However, climate change driven sea-level rise is causing many beaches to disappear, endangering property, infrastructure, and critical habitats. The goal of this project was to develop a method for forecasting erosion-vulnerable beach areas that could be used in coastal management planning. Researchers focused on the island of Kauaʻi, modeling beach response to rising sea level over the next century and producing maps that provide information about...
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Coral ecosystems of West Maui support a vibrant tourism industry and provide tangible economic benefits to the community. Hawaiian nearshore reefs generate about $800 million in annual revenue, not including the ecosystem services they provide - such as critical habitat for diverse fish species and buffering coasts from storm surges. The Hawaiian economy depends on healthy coral ecosystems, yet reefs are currently facing multiple threats, including changing climate conditions, local land-based pollution, and sediment erosion. Erosion of soils into nearshore coastal zones is a chief concern facing land managers in West Maui. Intermittent rainfall can carry sediment from sources such as dirt roads, agricultural fields,...
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The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports that low-lying atolls (ring-shaped islands or island chains made of coral) in the Pacific Ocean are extremely vulnerable to high tide events (“king tides”), storm surge, tsunamis, and sea-level rise. The Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) spreads over 29 atolls and has a population of over 50,000 people with homes and communities that may be threatened by these climate change-related events. Policy makers, planners, and others within RMI are faced with decisions about how to prepare for the future and need scientific data and information about the vulnerability of Pacific Islands to potential climate change impacts like sea-level rise. Topographic and bathymetric...
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Agriculture and agroforestry (tree cultivation) are important activities for the Marshall Islands and other small islands to ensure food security and human health. The Marshallese have a long tradition of interplanting food-producing trees such as coconuts, breadfruit, and pandanus with bananas and root and vegetable crops. Locally grown food crops support community self-sufficiency, promote good nutrition, and can also serve as windbreaks and stabilize shorelines to lessen storm damage and erosion. However, climate change is posing serious challenges for growers, as they struggle to adapt to climate impacts including saltwater intrusion, changing precipitation and temperature patterns, and the spread of invasive...
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ArcGIS layer package of relative classifications (low to high) for six resilience indicators and two anthropogenic stressors and a map of final relative resilience scores for 78 sites in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. The six resilience indicators are: bleaching resistance, coral diversity, coral recruitment, herbivore biomass, macroalgae cover and temperature variability. The two anthropogenic stressors are fishing access and nutrients and sediments. The resilience score map compares sites across all four of the surveyed islands: Saipan, Tinian, Aguijan, and Rota.
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Small Pacific islands are especially vulnerable to climate change. Challenges these coastal communities face include sea level rise, erosion, saltwater intrusion, flooding, droughts, and coral bleaching which in turn affect food and water security, infrastructure, and the health of humans and ecosystems. These small islands also have limited resources; therefore, managing them effectively is important to ensure sustainable communities and healthy environments. To support natural resource management, accurate, detailed, up-to-date geospatial data and products are vital to help monitor these resources, identify potential threats, and reveal potential solutions. Through this project, the University of Guam (UoG)...
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This project was designed to use climate models to produce projections of changes in sea temperatures and ocean chemistry for coastal marine areas in Micronesia as well as reports that describe the outlook of culturally important marine sites in Guam and CNMI. The projections and maps were expected show what the current state of climate science suggests the future holds for marine areas in Micronesia if we continue to use fossil fuels aggressively. These projections of sea conditions will become the foundation of outlook reports for Tumon Bay in Guam, Lao Lao Bay and Saipan Lagoon in Saipan, and northern Tinian Island. The selected areas are among the most important sites for recreation in Guam and CNMI and, as...
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Surrounded by saltwater, Hawaiian communities depend on freshwater streams for consumption, irrigation, traditional Hawaiian practices, and habitat for native fish and other stream life. It is important to be able to predict how Hawaiʻi’s streams will be affected by changing rainfall patterns to enable sustainable management of critical freshwater resources. However, to date, limited data and the uncertain effects of climate change have hindered predictions of future streamflow. Through this project, scientists developed a model that provides a way to estimate future stream low flow (streamflow during a period of prolonged dryness) by categorizing streams based on their physical characteristics. While the model...
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The Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) spreads over 29 atolls and has a population of over 50,000 people; over 27,000 of those people live on the Majuro Atoll, RMI’s capital. Sea level rise threatens the very existence of RMI as high-end projections of sea level rise by the end of the century exceed the average elevation of these low atoll reef islands. Already, waves wash over Majuro during “king tides” when strong winds blow from the west across the broad lagoon, or when there are high open ocean waves. Flooding waves breach island shores in multiple locations and wash into homes, cemeteries, across roads, and into commercial districts. Over the past decade, there has been a widespread exodus of residents...
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Over the past century, Hawaiʻi has experienced a pronounced decline in precipitation and stream flow and a number of severe droughts. These changes can have wide-reaching implications, affecting the water supply, native vegetation and wildlife, wildfire patterns, and the spread of invasive species. Several climate-related factors are influencing Hawaiˈi’s landscapes and contributing to these changes. These include climate change, climate variability, and drought (referred to collectively as CCVD). Climate variability describes how the climate fluctuates on a yearly basis around average values, while climate change describes patterns of long-term continuous change in the average. While it is understood that CCVD...
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With an average elevation of just seven feet above sea level, the Republic of the Marshall Islands is acutely vulnerable to inundation from both episodic events such as storm surge and chronic conditions such as sea-level rise. Some projections estimate that future sea-level rise could exceed the average elevation of these islands by 2100. Already, residents are facing extreme high tides and 16 foot swells that flood the islands with saltwater, damaging homes and infrastructure and contaminating the freshwater supply. Land elevation is the primary factor that determines the vulnerability of coastal areas to inundation. This project builds on previous work in which a 1-meter resolution digital elevation model (DEM)...
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As elevation increases, both temperature and moisture availability decrease. In many parts of the world, this decrease in temperature is a limiting factor for vegetation—at certain elevations, the temperature becomes too cold for plants to survive. However in the tropics, moisture availability may play a more important role than temperature in determining the altitude at which forests can grow. For example on Haleakalā, a volcano on the Hawaiian Island of Mauʻi, the forest line is not found at the same elevation everywhere, as you would expect if it were controlled by temperature. Rather, the forest line is highest in the wetter eastern-most end and lower on the drier, western end of the volcano. Research also...
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As one of the lowest-lying island nation-states in the world, the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) is acutely vulnerable to sea-level rise, flooding, and the associated intrusion of saltwater into crucial freshwater supplies. Persistent drought is further affecting agricultural production in the RMI. Many Marshallese communities are already experiencing these changes and are migrating to larger islands within the RMI and to other countries like the U.S. to, among other things, seek alternative means of making a living and access healthcare. The number of Marshallese residing in the U.S. has rapidly risen over the past two decades, from 7,000 in 2000 to 22,000 in 2010. There is also substantial internal migration,...
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Precipitation in Hawaiʻi’s higher elevation upland areas provides needed water to both people and ecosystems. Once it reaches the ground, rain can either run off and contribute to water flow in streams, or it can infiltrate into the ground and provide water for plants and recharge aquifers and groundwater. The exact route that water takes is controlled by many factors, including the duration and intensity of rainfall, the topography of the land, soil properties, and vegetation. The introduction and spread of invasive plants and animals in Hawaiian forests, which alters the water-use and soil characteristics of ecosystems, can have large impacts on downstream water users. Increased demand and competition for limited...
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Land, water, and natural resource managers and planners across Hawai’i are tasked with making important decisions about the state’s future. Reliable projections of Hawaiʻi's climate are needed to inform these decisions. This project aims to provide this needed scientific information to resource managers by improving estimates of Hawaiʻi’s near-term climate for the coming years and decades. The goal of this project is to develop very high-resolution climate projections for the Hawaiian Islands over the period from 2010 to 2039. This timeframe is novel. Most climate projections for Hawai’i are for the end of the century. In contrast, the timeframe of this study is “now”, which has intuitive relevance to resource...
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Increasing numbers of hazardous inundation events due to climate change is a serious threat to the culture, habitat, and infrastructure of the Hawaiian and U.S.-Affiliated Pacific Islands. The information currently available to stakeholders, however, is primarily confined to maximum or mean water level and does not include how often incursions are likely to occur. We propose to quantify the effect of local factors and Pacific climate variability on the frequency of inundation events in centers of population and infrastructure in Pacific island communities. We will produce seasonal outlooks that project the number of incursions above a given level at a particular site in 3-6 month windows. We choose seasonal outlooks,...
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In order to better document, manage, and adapt to the impacts of future climate variability and change on diverse natural resources in Hawaiʻi and the US Affiliated Pacific Islands (USAPI), several regional climate research programs including the Pacific RISA, the PICCC, the NOAA RCSD, and the East-West Center came together in 2011-2012 to collaboratively produce the Pacific Islands Regional Climate Assessment (PIRCA) (Keener, 2012) for the 2014 U.S. National Climate Assessment (NCA). Natural resource managers in sectors such as freshwater, coastal inundation and hazard response, and marine and terrestrial ecosystems need frequently updated summaries of regional and local climate trends, projections, and impacts...
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Clouds often come in contact with vegetation (often named fogs) within a certain elevation range on Hawaiʻi’s mountains. Propelled by strong winds, cloud droplets are driven onto the stems and leaves of plants where they are deposited. Some of the water that accumulates on the plants in this way drips to the ground, adding additional water over and above the water supplied by rainfall. Prior observations show that the amount of cloud water intercepted by vegetation is substantial, but also quite variable from place to place. It is, therefore, important to create a map for the complex spatial patterns of cloud water interception (CWI) in Hawaiʻi. In this project, we proposed to create the CWI map at 0.8-km resolution...
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On Hawai‘i’s mountains, cloud droplets, propelled by strong winds, are deposited on plants, where they accumulate and drip to the ground, adding water over and above that supplied by rainfall. Prior studies show that the amount of intercepted cloud water is substantial, and variable from place to place. Estimates of the spatial patterns of cloud water interception (CWI), the fog-related effects on plants, and the contributions of fog to groundwater recharge and surface water flows are needed to better understand the water cycle and predict effects of climate change on water supply and ecosystems. We will make measurements of fog, wind, fog interception, soil moisture, and fog effects on plant water use and plant...
map background search result map search result map Modeling the Response of Hawaiʻi’s Streams to Future Rainfall Conditions Developing an Agroforestry Dashboard for the Marshall Islands Forecasting Beach Loss from Sea-Level Rise on the Island of Kauaʻi Changing Hawaiian Seascapes and Their Management Implications Measurement of El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO)-related Climate Conditions and Ecosystem Responses in Hawaiʻi Coral Reef Resilience to Climate Change in CNMI results Projecting the Frequency and Impact of Future Coastal Flooding and Inundation Events in the Pacific Islands Assessing the Sustainability of Culturally Important Marine Sites in Guam and CNMI Cloud Water Interception in Hawai‘i - Part 1: Understanding the Impact of Fog on Groundwater and Ecosystems and Future Changes to these Processes Cloud Water Interception in Hawaiʻi - Part 2: Mapping Current and Future Exchange of Water Between Clouds and Vegetation in Hawaiʻi's Mountains Understanding Sediment Transport to Coastal Waters and Coral Reefs in West Maui Supporting a Collaborative Regional Assessment of Future Climate Impacts on Natural Resources in the Pacific Islands Influences of Climate Change, Climate Variability, and Drought on Human Communities and Ecosystems in Hawaiʻi Understanding the Effect of Climate Change on the Migration of Marshallese Islanders Collecting Elevation Data to Understand Climate Change Effects in the Marshall Islands Changes in Water Flow through Hawaiian Forests due to Invasive Species and Changing Rainfall Patterns Building Capacity for Coordination of Strategic Science Research in the US-Affiliated Pacific Islands Simulating and Projecting Future Impacts of Sea Level Rise on Majuro Atoll Near-term Climate Projections to Inform Adaptation in the Hawaiian Islands Characterizing Inundation Risk for Majuro Atoll Understanding Sediment Transport to Coastal Waters and Coral Reefs in West Maui Collecting Elevation Data to Understand Climate Change Effects in the Marshall Islands Simulating and Projecting Future Impacts of Sea Level Rise on Majuro Atoll Characterizing Inundation Risk for Majuro Atoll Forecasting Beach Loss from Sea-Level Rise on the Island of Kauaʻi Changing Hawaiian Seascapes and Their Management Implications Coral Reef Resilience to Climate Change in CNMI results Assessing the Sustainability of Culturally Important Marine Sites in Guam and CNMI Changes in Water Flow through Hawaiian Forests due to Invasive Species and Changing Rainfall Patterns Cloud Water Interception in Hawai‘i - Part 1: Understanding the Impact of Fog on Groundwater and Ecosystems and Future Changes to these Processes Cloud Water Interception in Hawaiʻi - Part 2: Mapping Current and Future Exchange of Water Between Clouds and Vegetation in Hawaiʻi's Mountains Influences of Climate Change, Climate Variability, and Drought on Human Communities and Ecosystems in Hawaiʻi Modeling the Response of Hawaiʻi’s Streams to Future Rainfall Conditions Developing an Agroforestry Dashboard for the Marshall Islands Understanding the Effect of Climate Change on the Migration of Marshallese Islanders Near-term Climate Projections to Inform Adaptation in the Hawaiian Islands Building Capacity for Coordination of Strategic Science Research in the US-Affiliated Pacific Islands Projecting the Frequency and Impact of Future Coastal Flooding and Inundation Events in the Pacific Islands Supporting a Collaborative Regional Assessment of Future Climate Impacts on Natural Resources in the Pacific Islands