Our main objective is to support territorial climate adaptation, natural resource management, and policy in American Samoa (AS) by bridging information gaps between regional and regional stakeholders through innovative web-tools. These tools will be co-produced with five regional agency partners, and will directly support implementation of their existing climate adaptation management and research activities to significantly move the needle in territorial climate adaptation capacity. (2) The need for a centralized data portal in AS is not new. AS-DOC hosted a now offline GIS portal to support building-permit applications, and in 2016 AS-EPA, AS-DOC, and CRAG, were funded to create a geospatial framework to enable planning and response to the emerging threats from climate change impacts. While that project successfully built IT and GIS capacity, the 2019 measles and 2020 Covid outbreaks halted progress on a planned data portal and funding has since lapsed. (3) We will build upon this momentum by developing an open-source DKAN data portal populated with an authoritative collection of AS’ climate and GIS data, and an interactive map-viewer to inform building permit applicants. The production process will support training, peer-to-peer mentorship, and agency placements for UH-Mānoa and ASCC student interns to promote a climate-aware next generation of managers and policy makers. (4) In addition to the web-tools themselves, a major project deliverable will be strengthened connections between regional agencies, UH-Mānoa, andregional partners that will allow each to leverage each other’s data and streamline their adaptation efforts. (5) We have partnered with land-use managers (AS-DOC), natural resource managers (CRAG, NPSA, ASPA), and regional educational institutions (ASCC, Land Grant) to build a tool that will be broadly utilized and will directly support climate adaptation activities throughout the territory.
