Water Resources Research Act Program

Details for Project ID 2012HI358B

Creating an inventory of coastal ecosystem services and their management in Hawaii

Institute: Hawaii
Year Established: 2012 Start Date: 2012-03-01 End Date: 2013-02-28
Total Federal Funds: $3,333 Total Non-Federal Funds: $6,727

Principal Investigators: Steven Gray

Project Summary: The proposed research seeks to create a near-exhaustive inventory of the ecosystem services provided by Hawaii’s coasts and watersheds and clearly identify the policies which manage (or in some cases may not manage) these services. Based on mail-out surveys to experts, a systematic review of watershed and coastal environmental policies, and interviews with coastal and watershed managers, this research is expected to highlight gaps and duplication in the current management activities of coastal ecosystem services across marine management institutions (e.g. municipal, state, federal) and marine sectors (e.g. fishing, aquaculture, tourism, etc.). The Hawaiian Islands offer an ideal test bed for developing this information and begin to coordinate management efforts since: (1) Hawaii has a diverse set of agencies and organizations in charge of managing and conserving a range of water-based ecosystem services; (2) different organizations have a range of focal areas given mandates that govern their activities; (3) there are large water resource issues that are divisive among stakeholder groups and the public; and, (4) there is little to no shared information about “who is managing what” in these complex watershed and coastal systems. Further the data derived from explicitly applying an ecosystem service framework to understand how water and coastal resources are currently managed in Hawaii will be shared across management institutions to help coordinate coastal and water management activities in Hawai’i. Results of this study are expected to be published in a peer-reviewed journal and presented at academic conferences.