Final Report: Working with Natural Resource Managers to Co-Produce Drought Analyses in Hawai‘i
Dates
Publication Date
2021-10-01
Citation
Christian Giardina, and Abby Frazier, 2021-10-01, Final Report: Working with Natural Resource Managers to Co-Produce Drought Analyses in Hawai‘i: .
Summary
A team comprised of scientists from the East-West Center (Honolulu, Hawai‘i) and from the USDA Forest Service (Institute of Pacific Islands Forestry, Hilo, Hawai‘i) piloted a project called the Pacific Drought Knowledge Exchange (PDKE). The primary objective of the PDKE pilot was to explore knowledge co-production with stakeholders in Hawai‘i, by providing them with: 1) easier access to drought and climate information and data sources; 2) better and more comprehensive information; 3) improved technical assistance; and 4) a more collaborative information transfer environment. Three stakeholders were approached and agreed to be involved in the pilot: Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park (HAVO), Puʻu Waʻa waʻa Forest Reserve (PWW), managed [...]
Summary
A team comprised of scientists from the East-West Center (Honolulu, Hawai‘i) and from the USDA Forest Service (Institute of Pacific Islands Forestry, Hilo, Hawai‘i) piloted a project called the Pacific Drought Knowledge Exchange (PDKE). The primary objective of the PDKE pilot was to explore knowledge co-production with stakeholders in Hawai‘i, by providing them with: 1) easier access to drought and climate information and data sources; 2) better and more comprehensive information; 3) improved technical assistance; and 4) a more collaborative information transfer environment. Three stakeholders were approached and agreed to be involved in the pilot: Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park (HAVO), Puʻu Waʻa waʻa Forest Reserve (PWW), managed by the State of Hawai‘i Department of Land and Natural Resources, Division of Forestry and Wildlife, and the Mauna Kahālāwai Watershed Partnership (MKWP) in West Maui. Stakeholder engagement began with in-person meetings on Hawai‘i island in January 2020, with hopes that a third in-person meeting would happen on Maui. This third meeting did not happen because of COVID. What followed was a series of virtual meetings with three pilot sites over the course of the project. During these meetings the science team worked with individual stakeholders to identify their data related needs and questions pertaining to drought. Each stakeholder was provided a comprehensive and site-specific Climate Change, Climate Variability and Drought (CCVD) portfolio that contained site-specific climate information, including average climate estimates, the annual climate cycle, a rainfall and drought history, year-to-year rainfall variability, and future projections of climate for a range of scenarios, time-periods, and methods. The PDKE research was presented at eleven scientific conferences, and thirteen invited talks, and the results were translated into seven unique factsheets containing original figures. Our successful co-production model can be used as an example for future projects seeking to engage in collaboratively developed research. The collaborations with project partners demonstrate how including managers in the research process from the beginning can result in timely and relevant drought-related tools and information that can be used for management planning on different scales.
