Coral reefs provide numerous ecosystem goods and services critical to human well-being (e.g., protection from storms and floods, food, income, recreation, and cultural practices), but those ecosystems are under serious threat due to growing human pressures, including overfishing, land-based pollution, and global climate change. Managers facing complex problems require decision-support tools that can guide costeffective action across the entire watershed, from ridge to reef. This project built a pilot tool for coral reef management that can map, assess, and value key goods and services from the reef environment. It provides important information to managers on the areas supplying the most value to humans, as well as the locations of threats. This tool can be used to run scenarios, for instance, different adaptation strategies, land use, or climate change projections, to evaluate their impact on ecological state and wellbeing outcomes.
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To better support resilient coral reef ecosystems in Hawaiʻi, project researchers propose to provide a dynamic, ecosystem-based decision-support tool for decision makers, non-profits, and community alliances. Regional research and management principles have shifted toward an ecosystem-based approach, but the required decision-support tools remain scarce. The team will develop a pilot decision-support tool for coral reef management that can map, assess, value, and simulate changes in ecosystem service flows under alternative GCC scenarios and adaptation strategies. Ecosystem services are the benefit that humans derive from natural systems, such as coral reefs. The project approach will model how specific GCC impacts (precipitation, temperature, terrestrial evapotranspiration, sea level rise, and coral reef impacts) will affect ecosystem dynamics, and then will translate this into ecosystem goods and services provided to people. The decision support tool will draw on ecological, physical, socio-economic, and ecological-economic models to link changes in watershed conditions with the flow of ecosystem goods and services. Elucidating these linkages can help decision-makers understand the social and economic tradeoffs of their management decisions. The research team will apply the tool to a case study in west Maui communities, translating GCC into human wellbeing terms and making recommendations for adaptation and management.
