Our Current Projects
Assessment of Biological Carrying Capacity in the Pūpūkea MLCD
Marine protected areas (MPAs) provide a range of benefits to humans, including providing recreational and tourism opportunities. However, like other human activities, tourism can have environmental impacts.
Damage to corals and other species from divers and snorkelers are among a range of tourism impacts documented in MPAs worldwide. Mitigating these impacts is a key aspect of MPA management and the key is assessing the number of tourists and other visitors an MPA can support – it’s carrying capacity. The number of people an area can support without unacceptable impacts to the environment. Under too much pressure from visitors, the ecosystem and/or physical attributes of a site can degrade making it less attractive to tourists.
Mālama Pūpūkea-Waimea (MPW,) a marine stewardship non-profit, was established by community members in 2005 to provide outreach and education and care for the marine life of the MLCD. Since 2012, MPW has commissioned and collaborated on a number of scientific and citizen science surveys to better understand the status and threats to the area’s marine life and recently drafted the first management plan for the area. Informed by this experience and data and in response to increasing visitation and a continued decline in marine life abundance and health, MPW commissioned Kosta Stamoulis (Seascape Solutions) in 2022 to conduct a study to investigate biological carrying capacity in the Kapoʻo area of the Pūpūkea MLCD.
In parallel with this study, MPW was successful in passing legislation (Hawaii state Act 31) to fund a pilot program to assess biological carrying capacity. The pilot program is currently underway and builds on the approach and findings of this research and Kosta continues to contribute as a technical advisor.
Strong Coast Project
Coastal zones provide key services to local communities but also carry significant risks from the land and ocean including threats from waves, storm surges, floods, and sea level rise, all of which are increasing with climate change. Protecting and restoring coastal ecosystems such as coral reefs and mangroves can help mitigate these threats while also supporting local economies and societal resilience.
This project explores risks and benefits to communities in tropical coral reef-dependent communities where replenishing coral reef and mangrove ecosystems has been piloted and can be scaled up to regional and national management levels as Nature-based Solutions (NBS).
This project is co-creating new knowledge with coastal communities in Florida, the US Virgin Islands, and Belize on how NBS can help address climate risk and provide equitable cobenefits.
The team's complementary expertise in engineering, ecology, and social sciences, linking seven academic institutions, multiple local partners, and cross-regional organizations, expands the scope of potential research outcomes to the entire US and ultimately to global tropical coastlines beyond the three focus regions. This convergence research approach advances the quantitative, data-driven evaluation of NBS for hazard risk reduction through the assessment of ecosystem social and economic co-benefits. Project results support the development of effective policy changes, community engagement, engineering guidance, and incentives and innovative financing for NBS.
The research is standardizing monitoring and analysis methods to allow for effective mainstreaming of active coastal sustainability management solutions.
The expanded and standardized use of NBS also opens the opportunity to broaden participation of diverse stakeholders in the climate adaptation process.
(more info here)
People, Planet, Prosperity Project
Despite growing recognition that healthy, functioning ecosystems are fundamental to achieving food and water security, poverty reduction, and sustainable development, the values provided by nature are not widely integrated into policy and investment decisions.
In response, the Natural Capital Project, the Asian Development Bank, and the Inter-American Development Bank are working with 10 pilot countries (Armenia, Belize, Chile, China, Colombia, Cook Islands, Ecuador, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, and Uruguay) to co-develop rapid natural capital approaches that directly inform policy and investment decisions for development and conservation goals, with the goal of scaling up these approaches around the world.
The project team is co-developing natural capital approaches in each pilot country – along with local government partners and local experts – in order to inform priority policy or finance decisions.
To help scale and mainstream these approaches, the project team is developing a standardized framework, training curricula and customizable tools for global application of rapid natural capital approaches, demonstrating and sharing different pathways for policy and finance interventions.
(more info here)
Enhancing social-ecological resilience and ecosystem services through restoration of coastal agroforestry systems in Hawaiʻi
Agroforestry systems have the capacity to support resilient coastal communities through providing food, conserving native biodiversity, and supporting multiple ecosystem services, and represent growing priorities for conservation initiatives worldwide. Yet, there is a paucity of data on costs and benefits of agroforest restoration and little guidance on where these systems are most likely to provide valued ecosystem services, such as carbon sequestration and sediment retention, alongside food production. This project builds on a biocultural agroforestry restoration project in Heʻeia, Oʻahu designed in collaboration with the community-based non-profit Kākoʻo ʻŌiwi. We work at the farm and ahupuaʻa scale in Heʻeia to better understand the ecological, economic, and cultural outcomes of coastal agroforestry restoration through time and combine this experience with agroforestry producer interviews and environmental, social, and economic data sets to develop scenarios of agroforesty restoration options relevant across the State. Based on this, we identify hot spot priority areas that can enhance biodiversity and ecosystem services of high interest to agencies, funders, and communities across the state including local food production, non-timber forest products for market and subsistence use, carbon sequestration, and/or supporting resilient coral reef ecosystems through reducing sediment export. Collectively, this research aims to improve the evidence base of agroforestry and help to match potential incentive programs, such as carbon offsets, with agroforest ecosystem service hotspots that provide multiple benefits and support resilient communities. We will also draw upon our collective experience to organize a workshop for undergraduate students, graduate students, and post-docs focused on participatory, community-based research or co-production of knowledge through the lens of enhancing ecosystem services and community resilience through agroforestry restoration.
Addressing land-based source pollution on the north shore of Kaua‘i
Water pollution from cesspools threatens the health, economy, and quality of life of residents of Hanalei and nearby communities. Cesspools, a type of antiquated wastewater treatment system where untreated sewage is discharged directly into the ground with minimal filtration, are still used across the Hawaiian Islands and Hanalei is home to over 150 cesspools. We partnered with the Hanalei Initiative to create a web map of existing wastewater systems in the region and rank their relative risk to the environment and human health. Click on the image to the left to view the map. This information is a resource for the community and will be used to prioritize cesspools for upgrades to more environmentally friendly systems.
Building off this work, Seascape Solutions in partnership with the Hanalei Initiative was successful in obtaining funding from the USDA to develop and implement a science-based, spatiallyexplicit evaluation of alternative wastewater treatment scenarios that consider future climate impacts and provide outreach and training to homeowners and other stakeholder groups in Hanalei. In collaboration with community members, County officials, and other stakeholders, we will develop a portfolio of mapped wastewater treatment scenarios for Hanalei. The focus will be on Hawaii Department of Health-approved (permitted) technologies ranging from individual systems to community sewer. Scenario planning will be informed by groundwater elevation monitoring, all relevant and available spatial datasets, future sea-level rise and rainfall predictions, and expert inputs.
A cost-benefit analysis will then be carried out to compare each wastewater treatment scenario in terms of capital costs of planning, equipment, installation, maintenance, etc., and benefits in terms of estimated reductions in wastewater pollutants. Geographic information systems (GIS) will be applied to compile and analyze all relevant spatial data to inform cost estimates and modeling of environmental impacts in terms of pollutant export (fecal indicator bacteria (FIBs) and nutrients) by watershed and community. The environmental benefits of each scenario will be calculated as the reduction of pollutants compared to current or baseline conditions while considering the effects of climate change.
Training and outreach to homeowners and other stakeholder groups will be conducted in parallel with the cost-benefit analysis. This will include training for homeowners on individual wastewater system maintenance and government funding opportunities for wastewater system upgrades, training for builders/contractors on best practices for system installation to minimize environmental impacts as well as several demonstration events targeted at these groups as well as local and County engineers. Finally, the results of the cost-benefit analysis will be presented to the communities in the service area as well as Kauai County officials and other stakeholders.
Nature-based solutions for climate action, biodiversity, and people in the United Arab Emirates
This project is led by Emirates Nature-WWF (EN-WWF) in partnership with Environment Agency Abu Dhabi (EAD), the International Centre for Biosaline Agriculture (ICBA) and funded by HSBC. The goal of the four-year project is to test and implement nature-based solutions (NbS) in the United Arab Emirates to address climate change mitigation challenges, promote biodiversity and create opportunities for socio-economic co-benefits. The project is focused on coastal ecosystem-based management and restoration addressing technical, policy and financial aspects with relevance to government and private decision makers. The results will guide decision making towards a policy framework that unlocks political support and financing for NbS to address a range of key national and global policies. Workstream one of this EN-WWF led project conducted a rapid and broad scale multi-criteria site selection process to identify and rank planning units on their suitability for delivering successful outcomes from NbS (Pittman et al. 2021, Pittman et al. 2022). Two high scoring seascapes from the stakeholder-led model) were selected as demonstration sites for implementing NbS. Workstream 2 (currently in progress) conducted an ecosystem services (ES) assessment for the two demonstration seascapes using InVEST (Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Tradeoffs) as a spatial modeling tool (Arkema et al. 2015). Effective ecosystem services assessment to inform the design and evaluation of nature-based solutions requires diverse spatial and aspatial data spanning three broad themes:
1.) biophysical environment;
2.) biodiversity and species distributions; and
3.) human uses, infrastructure, and potential threats
Investing in Resilience: Blue Carbon Ecosystems, Communities, and Finance for the Indo-Pacific
"Investing in Resilience: Blue Carbon Ecosystems, Communities, and Finance for the Indo-Pacific"
Human activity and climate change are threatening ecologically, economically, and culturally important blue carbon ecosystems throughout the Indo-Pacific region. These losses have cascading effects on nature, people and economies.
Climate change also threatens the viability of coastal economies and livelihoods, reducing critical habitat for ecologically and economically important fisheries and increasing the risk of overfishing as fish populations decline. Loss of blue carbon ecosystems imposes disproportionate impacts on women, girls, indigenous people, people with disabilities, and other marginalized groups.
These groups have less access to information and resources to adapt their livelihood strategies, they are often excluded from decision making processes, and their livelihood activities are often undervalued or overlooked in standard economic and market analyses. USAID is bringing together a team of global experts on fisheries, natural capital, carbon markets, and community-level climate risk management, who will examine the latest science, community perspectives, and innovative financing strategies to help governments, the private sector, and communities accelerate responsible investment in blue carbon ecosystems.
With an initial focus on the Indo-Pacific, the team is conducting:
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An inventory carbon sequestration by mangrove forests, seagrasses, and other less examined blue carbon ecosystems across the Indo-Pacific, and estimate losses of these habitats due to human activities;
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Analyzing the ecological and economic risks that blue carbon losses pose to Pacific communities, and identify opportunities to restore and conserve blue carbon through nature-based solutions and community capacity building; and
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Assessing public and private sector opportunities and mechanisms for scaling financing for blue carbon initiatives, and developing a financing handbook tailored to Indo-Pacific countries.