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As a low-lying coastal nation, the Republic of the Marshall Islands is at the forefront of exposure to climate change impacts. The Republic of the Marshall Islands has a strong dependence on natural resources and biodiversity not only for food and income but also for culture and livelihood. However, these resources are threatened by rising sea levels and associated coastal hazards (storm surges, saltwater intrusion, erosion, etc.). High-quality data for atoll ‘ridge to reef’ (land and ocean) areas are needed to provide remote communities with the tools and strategies to make adaptation efforts before disasters occur. Although the Republic of the Marshall Islands’ National Strategic Plans recognize the need to...
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Hawaiʻi is considered a worldwide biodiversity hotspot, with nearly 90 percent of its native plants found nowhere else in the world. However, about half of these native plants are imperiled by threats including human development, non-native species, and climate change. Through this project, scientists modeled the relative vulnerability of over 1,000 native plant species to the effects of climate change. A panel of experts in Hawaiian plant species assisted with the development of the model and verified its results. From the model, researchers were able to develop a vulnerability score for each plant species and identify categories of species with high, medium, and low vulnerability to climate change. This information...
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Located in the northern tropical Pacific Ocean, Majuro is the capital of the Republic of the Marshall Islands. Majuro Atoll consists of a large, narrow landmass and a set of smaller perimeter islands surrounding a lagoon that is over 100 square miles in size. The waters surrounding the Majuro Atoll land areas are relatively shallow with poorly mapped bathymetry. However, the Pacific Ocean on the exterior of the coral atoll and the lagoon within its interior consist of deep bathymetry with steep slopes. The highest elevation of the Majuro Atoll is estimated at only 3-meters above sea level, which is the island community of Laura located on the western part of the atoll. At the eastern edge of the atoll lies the capital...
Categories: Data; Tags: 3D Elevation Program, 3DEP, American Society of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, Base Maps, Bathymetric, All tags...
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American Samoa is vulnerable to sea-level rise in part due to the steep terrain of its islands. This terrain requires the majority of the islands’ villages and infrastructure to be located along thin strips of coastal land. The situation is worsened by the recently recognized rapid sinking of the islands, which was triggered by the 2009 Samoa earthquake and is predicted to last for decades. This subsidence is estimated to lead to roughly twice as much sea-level rise by 2060 as what is already predicted from climate change alone. As a result, the timeline of coastal impacts in American Samoa will be decades ahead of similar island communities in the Pacific. Despite this urgency, decision-makers in the region lack...
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The conditions of coral reefs in the Hawaiian Islands are predicted to decline significantly from climate change over the next 100 years. To better prepare for the impacts of climate change on Hawaiian reefs, the research team uses a system of models to simulate ocean waves and circulation, rainfall and storm run-off, and coral reef community dynamics through the year 2100. These models will identify reef areas that are either vulnerable or resilient to the many stressors that the future may hold for reefs. The team’s hope is that this work can identify areas that might benefit from management actions to minimize local stressors such as land-based pollution. Through a collaborative partnership with state and federal...
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The Hawai‘i Drought Knowledge Exchange project has been successfully piloting three sets of formal collaborative knowledge exchanges between researchers and managers to co-produce customized, site specific drought data products to meet the needs of their partners. Through these pilots, knowledge co-production has demonstrated how active collaboration between researchers and managers in the design and production of data products can lead to more useful and accessible applications for drought planning and management. Resource managers have strongly embraced the need for better and more timely information on climate change, variability and drought, as these stressors exert a large and costly impact on resources...
Abstract (from ScienceDirect): Avian malaria has played a significant role in causing extinctions, population declines, and limiting the elevational distribution of Hawaiian honeycreepers. Most threatened and endangered honeycreepers only exist in high-elevation forests where the risk of malaria infection is limited. Because Culex mosquito vectors and avian malaria dynamics are strongly influenced by temperature and rainfall, future climate change is predicted to expand malaria infection to high-elevation forests and intensify malaria infection at lower elevations, likely resulting in future extinctions and loss of avian biodiversity in Hawaii. Novel, landscape-level mosquito control strategies are promising, but...
Categories: Publication; Types: Citation
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Hawaiʻi and the United States Affiliated Pacific Islands face unique challenges in adapting to climate change due to geographic isolation, coastal hazards, close cultural and economic links natural resources, and underserved populations. To address these problems, the PI-CASC works to develop actionable research products through collaborative engagement with cultural and natural resource manager to ensure applicability of the research. In efforts to further support these co-production processes, the PI-CASC Management Climate Corps was developed to connect local natural resource managers, researchers, cultural practitioners, policy professionals, community leaders, and graduate students on Hawaiʻi Islands. The...
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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 they are threatened by growing human pressures and climate change. Resource managers must make complex decisions when developing adaptation plans that are cost-effective and maintain coral reef functions while still allowing for human use and development. Through this project, scientists developed a decision-support tool for managers to (1) identify the areas that provide the most critical coral reef services (i.e., supply the most value to humans) as well as the areas of reef most threatened, and (2) compare the effects of reef management...
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While home to many people and a rich diversity of unique plant and animal life, the U.S. territories of Guam and American Samoa are especially vulnerable to the effects of climate change because of their small size, geographical remoteness, and exposure to threats such as sea-level rise and increased storm surge. Developing predictions of future conditions is often the first step in helping decision makers and communities plan for change. However, to date, available global climate models have been too coarse in resolution to be useful for planning in the context of small, isolated islands. This project produced the first-ever set of high-resolution climate projections for Guam and American Samoa, providing information...
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Hawai‘i’s isolation, paired with limited water resources, make the archipelago sensitive to reductions in water availability. Drought can take different forms, varying across Island geographies with respect to frequency, intensity, duration, and extent. A drought event can exert hydrological, agricultural, ecological, and socio-economic impacts – and these impacts have been growing over the past century as droughts have become more frequent and severe. While the impacts of drought in Hawai‘i have been recently documented, important gaps remain in understanding these dynamics when engaging with multiple other stressors such as invasive species, shifting fire and climate patterns, pests, and pathogens. In particular,...
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The Hawaiian Islands are home to some of the world’s most culturally valuable but imperiled forest birds, including brightly colored native honeycreepers, many of which are threatened or endangered. One of the major threats these birds face is avian malaria, which is spread by a species of introduced mosquito and can have death rates exceeding 90 percent. For decades, upper mountain forests have provided refuge for Hawaiian forest birds because mosquitoes (and thus the disease) could not survive the cooler temperatures. However, warming associated with climate change could change this. Scientists used climate data and an epidemiological model to evaluate the future impacts of avian malaria on Hawaiian forest birds...
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Coral reefs are sometimes called “rainforests of the sea” because of their immense biological diversity and economic value. While coral reefs are sensitive to changes in their environment such as altered temperature or pollution, some reefs are more resilient, or able to recover from disturbance more quickly, than others. The overarching objective of this project was to gather information on coral reef resilience and vulnerability to climate change that could inform coastal management decision-making in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI). Scientists collaborated with local managers to survey reefs at 78 locations throughout the CMNI and evaluate indicators of resilience, such as numbers of juvenile...
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Hawaiʻi’s native forests supply the state with freshwater, support cultural practices, and are home to more than 10,000 plants and animals found nowhere else in the world. However, they are also threatened by the spread of invasive species and may be vulnerable to shifting temperature and rainfall patterns brought about by climate change. Through this project, scientists sought to better understand how native and non-native forests in Hawaiʻi will respond to climate change. Researchers used field data from two long-term monitoring sites in Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park to model the effects of projected climate change on two forest ecosystems, one dominated by the native ʻōhiʻa tree and the other by the invasive...
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Maui’s threatened Haleakalā silversword forms the foundation of a diverse high-elevation community on Haleakalā, and is an ideal species for assessing how this ecosystem is responding to climate change. The silversword’s striking appearance makes it one of Hawaiʻi’s most recognizable species, and it is one of the main attractions drawing 1-2 million tourists to Haleakalā National Park each year. The plant was once considered a conservation success, when active management led to a population recovery in the early 20th century. Unfortunately, silversword populations are now declining, and climate change – namely decreasing precipitation and increasing temperatures – is thought to be responsible. The goal of this...
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Detailed, reliable projections of future changes in climate are needed by Hawai‘i’s resource managers, such as water utilities managers, land managers, conservation organizations, and decision makers. However, global climate models (or “general circulation models”), which are currently the most commonly used tool for projecting future climate variations, are known for representing large-scale climate patterns and are not ideal for simulating climate processes at small spatial scales, such as those relevant to Hawai’i’s climate. Traditionally, the technique of “downscaling” is used to bridge this gap between global climate models and local climate conditions. Due to the lack of downscaled datasets for Hawai’i, however,...
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Surrounded by saltwater, human and natural communities on the Hawaiian Islands depend upon the freshwater supplied by rainfall for survival. Climate change will likely alter rainfall timing and intensity, but global climate models cannot capture the fine-scale dynamics of local rainfall, making future rainfall predictions for the islands uncertain. For this project, scientists used a technique called statistical downscaling (combining coarse-scale climate models with local historical data) to generate high-resolution maps showing seasonal rainfall change projections for Hawaiʻi over the course of this century. Results suggest that Hawaiʻi’s climate will become drier overall in the second half of the century, but...
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Coral reef ecosystems serve as natural coastal defenses, support local island economies, and are important sources of food for coastal communities. However, an increase in coral bleaching events, and the associated declines of coral cover and diversity, are highly likely as sea surface temperatures continue to rise. Multiple coral bleaching events between 2013 and 2017 have already impacted the reefs of Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, resulting in the loss of more than a third of shallow living-coral cover, with some species groups experiencing greater than 90% mortality. This devastating series of bleaching events strengthened existing partnerships between federal and local agencies and...
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The Hawaiian Islands are home to many people and host a rich diversity of unique plant and animal life, but they are especially vulnerable to the effects of climate change because of their small size, geographical remoteness, and exposure to threats such as sea-level rise and increased storm surge. Developing predictions of future conditions is often the first step in helping decision makers and communities plan for change. However, to date, available global climate models have been too coarse in resolution to be useful for planning in the context of small, isolated islands. This project produced very high resolution climate projections for the Hawaiian islands of O‘ahu and Kaua‘i, providing information on key variables...
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Globally, shorelines provide a vital defense system against extreme weather and erosion events and are a critical public and cultural resource. Within the state of Hawaiʻi, coastal vulnerability and historic change has been well documented and studied on the Islands of Oʻahu, Maui, and Kauaʻi, but this has not been done for the Island of Hawaiʻi, the largest and most diverse island in the Hawaiian archipelago. For example, Hurricane Lane caused major flooding and coastal erosion on Hawaiʻi Island in 2018, but no comprehensive baseline shoreline dataset exists to document and quantify the changes it caused. To help fill this knowledge gap, this study aims to create a shoreline inventory of the entire coastline...
map background search result map search result map Developing High-Resolution Rainfall Change Scenarios for the Hawaiian Islands 21st Century High-Resolution Climate Projections for Guam and American Samoa Vulnerability of Hawaiian Forest Birds to Climate Change Assessing Viability of the Haleakalā Silversword to Uncover the Effects of Climate Change on Hawaiˈi’s High-Elevation Ecosystems Projections of Future Coral Reef Communities in DOI-Managed Coastal Areas in the Hawaiian Islands Coral Reef Resilience to Climate Change in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands Understanding the Response of Native and Non‐Native Forests to Climate Variability and Change Valuing Climate Change Impacts on Coral Reef Ecosystem Services Very High Resolution Climate Projections for the Islands of O‘ahu and Kaua‘i Establishing Climate Change Vulnerability Rankings for Hawaiian Native Plants One Meter Topobathymetric Digital Elevation Model for Majuro Atoll, Republic of the Marshall Islands, 1944 to 2016 Enhancing Stakeholder Capacity for Coastal Inundation Assessments in the Marshall Islands Preliminary Investigation of Machine Learning Approaches to Improve Projections of Future Climate in Hawai‘i Scaling up the Hawai‘i Drought Knowledge Exchange: Expanding Stakeholder Reach and Capacity to Address Climate Change, Variability, and Drought Malo‘o ka lani, wela ka honua (When the sky is dry, the earth is parched): Investigating the Cultural Dimensions of Indigenous Local Knowledge Responses to Changing Climate Conditions Using Cutting-Edge Technology to Assess Coral Reef Bleaching Events and Recovery Rates in Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands Generating a Shoreline Inventory for Hawai‘i Island to Increase Resilience in the Face of Rising Sea Levels Sea-Level Rise Viewer for American Samoa: A Co-Developed Visualization and Planning Tool Increasing Climate Extension in the Pacific Islands Climate Adaptation Science Center Assessing Viability of the Haleakalā Silversword to Uncover the Effects of Climate Change on Hawaiˈi’s High-Elevation Ecosystems One Meter Topobathymetric Digital Elevation Model for Majuro Atoll, Republic of the Marshall Islands, 1944 to 2016 Vulnerability of Hawaiian Forest Birds to Climate Change Very High Resolution Climate Projections for the Islands of O‘ahu and Kaua‘i Using Cutting-Edge Technology to Assess Coral Reef Bleaching Events and Recovery Rates in Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands Sea-Level Rise Viewer for American Samoa: A Co-Developed Visualization and Planning Tool Projections of Future Coral Reef Communities in DOI-Managed Coastal Areas in the Hawaiian Islands Understanding the Response of Native and Non‐Native Forests to Climate Variability and Change Establishing Climate Change Vulnerability Rankings for Hawaiian Native Plants Developing High-Resolution Rainfall Change Scenarios for the Hawaiian Islands Enhancing Stakeholder Capacity for Coastal Inundation Assessments in the Marshall Islands Preliminary Investigation of Machine Learning Approaches to Improve Projections of Future Climate in Hawai‘i Scaling up the Hawai‘i Drought Knowledge Exchange: Expanding Stakeholder Reach and Capacity to Address Climate Change, Variability, and Drought Malo‘o ka lani, wela ka honua (When the sky is dry, the earth is parched): Investigating the Cultural Dimensions of Indigenous Local Knowledge Responses to Changing Climate Conditions Generating a Shoreline Inventory for Hawai‘i Island to Increase Resilience in the Face of Rising Sea Levels 21st Century High-Resolution Climate Projections for Guam and American Samoa Increasing Climate Extension in the Pacific Islands Climate Adaptation Science Center