Other Landscapes

Freshwater is a critical driver for island ecosystems. Climate change has fundamentally altered the water cycle in tropical islands. The changes in dynamic patterns of streamflow could result in the temporal and spatial difference in the riverine, estuarine, and coastal habitats that support native species. In particular, these habitats support the nine native aquatic species in Hawaiʻi...

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...

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...

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...

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...

Mangroves are forested tidal wetlands that occur in tropical, sub-tropical, and warm temperate coastal regions around the world. Mangroves occupy a significant area of coastlines globally and provide important ecosystem services to humans and wildlife. These services include aesthetic value, storm protection, food provisioning, recreation, critical wildlife habitat, and biological carbon

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...

Ecosystems such as coral reefs and mangroves provide an effective first line of defense against coastal hazards and represent a promising nature-based solution to adapt to sea-level rise. In many areas, coral reefs cause waves to break and lose energy, allowing for sediment to accumulate on the inshore portion of reef flats (i.e. the shallowest, flattest part of a reef) and mangroves to...

Climate change is already affecting ecosystems, and will likely trigger significant and permanent changes in both ecological and human communities. Such transformations are already occurring in the Arctic region of Alaska, where temperatures are warming at twice the global average and causing some ecosystems to transition to new states. Arctic warming has led to coastal erosion that has...

Hawaiian forest birds play important roles in many ecological processes. For example, 61% of native flowering Hawaiian plant species are either bird pollinated or dispersed through ingestion by birds. However, native bird communities across Hawaiʻi continue to decline despite efforts to control predators and enhance habitat. These declines are, in part, due to the mosquito-borne avian...

Some areas of the U.S. Affiliated Pacific Islands (USAPI) are experiencing a decline in precipitation and streamflow and an increase in the 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. As ecosystems become altered by invasive species and as

Ecosystem services, or the benefits that natural ecosystems provide to people, are inherently spatial, tied to the specific ecosystems that create them. Mapping where ecosystem services are abundant or in short supply and identifying what lands provide certain services is useful for a variety of purposes, including land-use planning and assessment of conservation and restoration...