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Alan Mair

Alan Mair is a hydrologist with the Pacific Islands Water Science Center in Honolulu, Hawaiʻi.

Alan Mair's research focuses on quantifying the impacts of climate and land-cover change on freshwater availability in the Hawaiian Islands and other Pacific island communities. His active research studies include:

  • Estimating changes in groundwater recharge under projected future climate conditions for the island of Maui
  • Quantifying the impacts of high-priority non-native and dominant native plant species on freshwater availability in Hawai‘i
  • Estimating soil-moisture stress, climatic water deficit and groundwater recharge during droughts for current and projected future climate conditions in Hawai‘i

Alan joined the U.S. Geological Survey, Pacific Islands Water Science Center in 2013. His prior professional experience includes post-doctoral fellowships at the University of Hawai‘i, and engineer positions in Hawai‘i, Malaysia, and California.

Education

PhD, Natural Resources & Environmental Management, University of Hawai‘i, Mānoa, 2009

MEng, Civil & Environmental Engineering, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, 1989

BS, Electrical Engineering, University of California, Santa Barbara, 1986

 

Registrations

Professional Civil Engineer, California and Hawai‘i

Professional Hydrologist (Groundwater), American Institute of Hydrology

 

 

Science and Products

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Image Collage of Landsat, pollinator, and volcanologist

Effects of Drought and Cloud-Water Interception on Wildfire Hazard in Hawaiʻi

Understanding the effects of drought and cloud-water interception on wildfire hazard is critical to Hawai‘i’s water-resource managers, farmers, ranchers, and forest, watershed, and wildfire managers for developing adaptive management strategies. Identifying areas of increased wildfire hazard is also important for developing strategic monitoring programs to help assess and predict the effects of...
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Pacific Islands Water Science Center
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Effects of Drought and Cloud-Water Interception on Wildfire Hazard in Hawaiʻi

Understanding the effects of drought and cloud-water interception on wildfire hazard is critical to Hawai‘i’s water-resource managers, farmers, ranchers, and forest, watershed, and wildfire managers for developing adaptive management strategies. Identifying areas of increased wildfire hazard is also important for developing strategic monitoring programs to help assess and predict the effects of...
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Image Collage of Landsat, pollinator, and volcanologist

Groundwater Recharge in Hawaiʻi

Groundwater provides 99 percent of Hawai‘i’s drinking water and about 50 percent of all freshwater used in the State. Groundwater recharge is water derived from precipitation and other sources, such as irrigation and leakage from surface reservoirs, that moves through or bypasses the plant-soil system and replenishes aquifers. Groundwater availability in Hawai‘i is affected by changes in...
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Pacific Islands Water Science Center
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Groundwater Recharge in Hawaiʻi

Groundwater provides 99 percent of Hawai‘i’s drinking water and about 50 percent of all freshwater used in the State. Groundwater recharge is water derived from precipitation and other sources, such as irrigation and leakage from surface reservoirs, that moves through or bypasses the plant-soil system and replenishes aquifers. Groundwater availability in Hawai‘i is affected by changes in...
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Photo of strawberry guava on Maui

Effects of High-Priority Non-Native and Dominant Native Plant Species on the Water Cycle

The spread of highly-invasive non-native plant species in Hawaiʻi’s forests may be reducing freshwater availability across the islands. However, little information has been collected to determine the effects of highly-invasive non-native plant species on freshwater resources. The lack of information, in turn, limits the development of effective management strategies for preserving Hawaiʻi’s...
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Pacific Islands Water Science Center
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Effects of High-Priority Non-Native and Dominant Native Plant Species on the Water Cycle

The spread of highly-invasive non-native plant species in Hawaiʻi’s forests may be reducing freshwater availability across the islands. However, little information has been collected to determine the effects of highly-invasive non-native plant species on freshwater resources. The lack of information, in turn, limits the development of effective management strategies for preserving Hawaiʻi’s...
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Mean annual water-budget components for the Island of Maui, Hawaii, for a set of eight future climate and land-cover scenarios

These shapefiles represent the spatial distribution of mean annual water-budget components, in inches, for the Island of Maui, Hawaii for a set of eight future climate and land-cover scenarios. The future climate conditions used in the water-budget analyses were derived from two end-of-century downscaled climate projections including (1) a projected future climate condition representative of phase
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Pacific Islands Water Science Center

Land-Cover Map for the Island of Maui, Hawaii, 2017

This dataset describes land cover and vegetation for the island of Maui, Hawaii, circa 2017, hereinafter the 2017 land-cover map. The 2017 land-cover map is a modified version of the dataset titled "Mean annual water-budget components for the Island of Maui, Hawaii, for recent conditions, 1978-2007 rainfall and 2010 land-cover map" by Johnson (2015), hereinafter the 2010 land-cover map. Modi
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Pacific Islands Water Science Center

Summary of soil field-saturated hydraulic conductivity, hydrophobicity, and preferential-flow measurements and soil laboratory-testing results collected at three sites on the islands of Maui and Hawaii, Hawaii, July 2016-January 2018

The U.S. Geological Survey Pacific Islands Water Science Center and the University of Hawaii at Manoa Department of Geography, in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Interior Pacific Islands Climate Adaptation Science Center initiated a field data-collection program as part of a study to quantify the impacts of drought on water resources and the importance of cloud-water interception in mitiga
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Pacific Islands Water Science Center

Summary of soil field-saturated hydraulic conductivity, hydrophobicity, preferential-flow, and particle-size measurements collected at four research sites on the island of Maui, Hawaii, September 2017-August 2018

The U.S. Geological Survey and the University of Hawaii at Manoa, in cooperation with the County of Maui Department of Water Supply and the State of Hawaii Commission on Water Resource Management, initiated a field data-collection program to provide information for evaluating how infiltration rates and soil hydrophobicity are dependent on plant species type within forested areas on the island of M
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Pacific Islands Water Science Center

Identifying the relative importance of water-budget information needed to quantify how land-cover change affects recharge, Hawaiian Islands

This report describes a sensitivity analysis of a water-budget model that was completed to identify the most important types of hydrologic information needed to reduce the uncertainty of model recharge estimates. The sensitivity of model recharge estimates for the Hawaiian Islands of Oʻahu and Maui was analyzed for seven model parameters potentially affected by land-cover changes within a watershe
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Adam G. Johnson, Alan Mair, Delwyn S. Oki
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Water Resources Mission Area, Pacific Islands Water Science Center

A century of drought in Hawai‘i: Geospatial analysis and synthesis across hydrological, ecological, and socioeconomic scales

Drought is a prominent feature of Hawaiʻi’s climate. However, it has been over 30 years since the last comprehensive meteorological drought analysis, and recent drying trends have emphasized the need to better understand drought dynamics and multi-sector effects in Hawaiʻi. Here, we provide a comprehensive synthesis of past drought effects in Hawaiʻi that we integrate with geospatial analysis of d
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Abby G. Frazier, Christian P. Giardina, Thomas W Giambelluca, Laura Brewington, Yi-Leng Chen, Pao-Shin Chu, Lucas Fortini, David Helweg, Victoria W. Keener, Ryan J Longman, Matthew P Lucas, Alan Mair, Delwyn S. Oki, Julian J Reyes, Stephanie G. Yelenik, Clay Trauernicht
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Ecosystems Mission Area, Pacific Island Ecosystems Research Center

Cloud water interception in Hawai‘i: Developing capacity to characterize the spatial patterns and effects on water and ecological processes responses in Hawai‘i

Cloud-water interception (CWI) is the process by which fog or cloud water droplets are captured and accumulate on the leaves and branches of plants, some of which drips to the ground. Prior studies in Hawai'i indicate that CWI is highly variable and can contribute substantially to total precipitation. In this study, we monitored CWI and other processes at five mountain field sites on the Islands o
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Han Tseng, Lucas Fortini, Alan Mair, Aurora Kagawa-Viviani, Stephanie G. Yelenik, Yoshiyuki Miyazawa, Michael A Nullet, Joseph Kennedy, John DeLay, Christina Leopold, Thomas Giambelluca
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Ecosystems Mission Area, Water Resources Mission Area, Climate Adaptation Science Centers, Pacific Islands Water Science Center

Simulating land cover change impacts on groundwater recharge under selected climate projections, Maui, Hawaiʻi

This project developed an integrated land cover/hydrological modeling framework using remote sensing and geographic information systems (GIS) data, stakeholder input, climate information and projections, and empirical data to estimate future groundwater recharge on the Island of Maui, Hawaiʻi, USA. End-of-century mean annual groundwater recharge was estimated under four future land cover scenarios
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Laura Brewington, Victoria Keener, Alan Mair
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Water Resources Mission Area, Pacific Islands Water Science Center

Estimated groundwater recharge from a water-budget model incorporating selected climate projections, Island of Maui, Hawai‘i

Demand for freshwater on the Island of Maui is expected to increase by 45 percent between 2015 and 2035. Groundwater availability on Maui is affected by changes in climate and agricultural irrigation. To evaluate the availability of fresh groundwater under projected future climate conditions and changing agricultural irrigation practices, estimates of groundwater recharge are needed. A water-budge
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Alan Mair, Adam G. Johnson, Kolja Rotzoll, Delwyn S. Oki
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Water Resources Mission Area, Pacific Islands Water Science Center

Volcanic aquifers of Hawai‘i—Hydrogeology, water budgets, and conceptual models

Hawai‘i’s aquifers have limited capacity to store fresh groundwater because each island is small and surrounded by saltwater. Saltwater also underlies much of the fresh groundwater. Fresh groundwater resources are, therefore, particularly vulnerable to human activity, short-term climate cycles, and long-term climate change. Availability of fresh groundwater for human use is constrained by the degr
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Scot K. Izuka, John A. Engott, Kolja Rotzoll, Maoya Bassiouni, Adam G. Johnson, Lisa D. Miller, Alan Mair
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Water Resources Mission Area, Pacific Islands Water Science Center
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Understanding Freshwater Availability on Maui Under Projected Future Climate Conditions

Demand for freshwater on the island of Maui is expected to increase by 45 percent between 2015 and 2035. Wetter and drier climate scenarios impact the...

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