 ThinkTek Hawaii, civil engagement lives here. Happy Aloha Friday and welcome to ThinkTek Hawaii. This is your episode of Likeable Science. I'm Cara Miller, your host today, filling in for Ethan Allen. Very excited to introduce to you our guest that we have appearing on ThinkTek today, Dr. Jay DeLavu. Hi, Jay. How are you doing? Good. Thank you. Thanks for coming onto the show. Thank you. I'm glad to be here. We have an exciting topic to discuss with Jay today, particularly ridge-to-reef management in the state of Hawaii. Ridge-to-reef management, if you don't know, means all the way from the mountains down to the ocean and effectively managing the natural resources along the way. Jay recently finished her PhD with the University of Hawaii, Natural Resources Environmental Management Department, and she'll be discussing a little bit about her PhD work and findings with us on the show today. So Jay, can you start by just giving us an overview of what it was that you studied for your PhD and what your project was about? Yes. So we were funded by the National Science Foundation to work with the community of Haena on the North Shore of Kauai and the community of Kaupolehu on the west side of Kauai to help inform how to manage ridge-to-reef resources in a sustainable fashion moving into the future, giving projected climate change impacts and local stressors like coastal development and fishing pressure. Great. Well, I remember there was recently a new study that was published specifically around climate change with some of the new data that's available around sea level rise, not just here in Hawaii, but some other of the low-lying Pacific Islands, really highlighting just what we're up against coming into the next 20, 30, 40, 50 years. How does some of the most recent data around climate change affect this project that you're working on? So our work was mostly focused on coral bleaching, which is a result of increase in sea surface temperature. So Hawaii, for instance, in the last 2015, was hit really hard by a bleaching event, which adds more pressure to our local fisheries. So we were mostly focused on bleaching. Definitely. Does Hawaii already have management structures in place that are meant to manage and protect our coral reefs? Yeah. The state has been working on, they use different size limit for fishes. They have marine reserves, like marine-managed area, like the Honama Bay, or Pupukian, the Norshoa Wahoo. There's different types of policy tools that can be used to sustainably manage our Norshoa resources. In the two communities that we worked with, they actually just recently enacted marine protected, well, marine refuge and resting areas, which were initiated by the communities, which resulted in the closure of some of their reef system. So given that some of the impact from fishing pressure was well taken care of, we focused on looking at the impact of existing and projected coastal development coupled with bleaching impacts. Oh, I see, interesting. So specifically, you guys were focusing on a particular type of management, area and strategy. Yes. Can you say a little bit more about that? Well, so if we look at the, just looking broadly first at the Hawaiian Islands, and we can look at the figure one. We can see that the islands are exposed to different natural processes. So along the windward side of the islands, we're exposed to trade winds and rainfall, while on the leeward side of the islands, we're mostly sheltered from with power and rainfall. So if we look at our two study sites, we see that Hainae is actually really exposed to rainfall and waves on a seasonal basis, while Kaopulehu is more located in a dry region on one of the youngest islands and protected from wave action. So the fact that those two places are driven and shaped by those different natural processes, it's important to look at place-based management, because every place is different. So therefore, different management tools is going to be more or less relevant based on the local conditions. Oh, wow. This is really interesting stuff. So basically what you're saying is this is even taking community-based and place-based management to the next level. And in fact, this is zoning in specifically to the specificities of what's going on in this particular community. And then that approach might be completely different from the others, what you're saying, like the Kua'i versus Big Island community groups. Yeah. So for instance, if we look at figure three, in Hainae, we can see that they used a marine closure, which is located under the Makua Reef, which is a fairly small size, but which ends up covering and protecting important fishing grounds, which are protected by their large reef crest around that marine reserve. And if we compare this marine system, marine reserve to our figure five in Kaupolehu, we can see that the resting area that they've established extends out to 120 feet offshore and captures most of the Aupua'i boundaries. And the size of those marine reserves actually are very relevant to the dynamic of the place. Wow. So are these places that have been participating in this type of management historically, or is this a new thing, or is it a form of renaissance, or what is it exactly? Yeah. So based on in the last 100 years, 50 years or so, we've observed a serious decline in our natural resources around the Pacific, which has actually resulted in a cultural renaissance where communities around the Pacific are trying to revive those place-based management actions and trying to tackle the pressures that they're under through local-based actions. And in Kaupolehu are the two first leading examples that we're seeing in Hawai'i. There's a number of communities which are also trying to establish local-scale fisheries and reef management across the chain. So we're hoping that we can learn from those two places locally, but this is a process that we're observing in other places like Fiji, Indonesia, Guam, where communities want to have a say in how their resources are managed. Awesome. And if I'm not mistaken, the process that was made legitimate by law in the state of Hawai'i for this community-based form of management of coastal and marine resources started a few years ago. And since then, there's a few communities, correct, that have been established as officially community-based subsistent fishing areas. But was any of your site one of those, or is there any specifics related to your sites of that process? Yeah. So Haina was designated a CBSFA in a community-based subsistence fishing area. And that was the first one in the state to receive that designation. And it got this designation back in 2006, but after you get that designation, it took another 10 years of negotiation and planning in collaboration with the state to come up with a set of rules grounded in customary practices to then become laws. And these were signed in 2015. Oh, wow. Long process. So it was a long process. So why is this customary way of managing and this local knowledge that you're referring to so important? Well, if we look over the history of Pacific Islanders and Pacific Islands, Pacific Islands are oceanic islands which are subject to a lot of natural disturbances, whether it's tsunami, volcanic eruption, storms, cyclones, drought, too much water. The communities from Pacific Islands have adapted over thousands of years on how to live and thrive in those environments. So they have developed methods of agroforestry, fisheries management that allows them to withstand and in the face of all those uncertainties. And now today we're faced with climate change and a lot of uncertainty towards what is the future going to look like. And it's important to maintain our food production systems because they will allow us to be resilient moving into the future. And coming up with new solutions or using old solutions is what is going to help us thrive moving forward. Awesome. This is amazing. So I can see why both from the things that you've said and some of the excitement that comes up as you're talking about it, this is why you chose to spend the years of your PhD research looking into this and working alongside these communities. So of all those environmental factors that you just mentioned, which in particular were you looking at and studying and tell us a little bit more about which are the most important for the areas that you work in? Yeah. I think one thing that really characterized the differences between Kalpuliwa and Hainan is that they both represent kind of the both end of the spectrums in terms of environmental conditions in Hawaii. Going from sheltered, dry, very young geology to old, one of the wettest place on earth exposed to massive swells on a seasonal basis. One thing that was important for both places is that they are subject to increase in coastal development. They are vulnerable to projected bleaching impacts and fishing pressure was also an issue as they had observed decline in their fisheries. So we wanted to develop models and science that was based on the characteristics of these places in terms of rainfall and wave and how those influence the whole reach-to-reef system and then looking at the human drivers and how those were then affecting the system separately. So then we could then really identify management actions that are grounded in the place. This is great. So this model that you developed, you're saying is able to in a way separate where the biggest impact is coming from. Whether it is an environmentally driven stressor or human one is what you're saying. This model is able to actually gauge what's going to have the biggest impact and how? Yeah, so if we look at figure six, it will actually show how our model was designed and built around. So in partnership with the communities, we developed a number of scenarios in terms of coastal development. Looking at what were the current tax parcels that could potentially be turned into houses. We looked at current golf courses, fertilizers application and basically really designed future scenarios grounded in current land zoning and land use practices. We also looked at what were the bleaching projection for the region and what were the potential impact that we could expect in the main Hawaiian islands. And we looked at what were the benefits of those recently enacted marine closures. And we were able to track the effect of those human drivers throughout the reach to reef system by modeling the groundwater and the coastal discharge from the groundwater, looking at freshwater and nutrients, and also looking at the marine drivers that affect coral reefs in terms of habitat or wave power. And in terms of the indicators that the communities were interested in understanding how they would change over time, we looked at the benthic corals and algae, as well as fish that were important culturally for fisheries. So by being able to track those indicators across the system, across those different scenarios, we were able to identify the areas where we should focus our management effort based on this is where the corals are the most vulnerable, this is where we're discharging the most of our nutrients. This is how we should probably try to reduce our impact through either cesspool removal or fertilizers practices. What an amazing utility that you can actually separate where the biggest threats are coming from and then specifically frame and format your management advice accordingly. I think that that's a really fantastic tool. So for example, what were the major findings? What did your model end up showing both on land and in the ocean for Kuala Lumpur and for Haena? Yeah, so first we kind of established what were the baseline. So if we looked at figure seven, by modelling the groundwater and the rainfall influence, we were able to show that, well, basically confirm what we knew that Haena is highly driven by rainfall and receives a lot of groundwater discharge, which results in dilution of the nutrients that we discharge as well. We also found that ways where a major driver of the coral reef community, so therefore corals are not able to grow as well on the reef slopes because when there's major wave event, they get basically wiped out and then a new generation of corals has to regrow as opposed to Kaopuli, who where corals are able to grow and therefore dominate the Bente community. And therefore because there's also less fresh water discharge, nutrients concentration were a lot higher in Kaopuli. And given that there's a lack of mixing also from wave action, Kaopuli, who turned out to be more vulnerable to bleaching and coastal development across the whole system, while Haena, which would tend to think of the North Shore as being more resilient because of all the fresh water and the waves, turned out to be more vulnerable to those human impacts but at a smaller scale. So really looking at those lagoons and reef systems that support our fisheries. Wow. Well, this is really, really good stuff, Jade. And I really look forward to hearing a lot more about this. I think that we're about to be approaching a break here. So we'll be right back. We'll be right back after this. We're going to show you some exciting commercials in the meantime. And we'll be right back. Thank you. Hello. My name is Stephanie Mock. And I'm one of three hosts of Think Tech Hawaii's Hawaii Food and Farmers series. Our other hosts are Matt Johnson and Pomai Weigert. And we talk to those who are in the fields and behind the scenes of our local food system. We talk to farmers, chefs, restaurateurs, and more to learn more about what goes into sustainable agriculture here in Hawaii. We are on Thursdays at 4 p.m. And we hope we'll see you next time. Aloha. I'm Jade Farnell, founder of Think Tech Hawaii. And I'm Andrea Gabrielli, the host for Young Talent's Making Way. Wait a minute. This is not a new episode, is it, Jade? No, it's not a new episode. That show is over, Andrea. So what are you going to do now? Why don't we have a summer edition of Young Talent's Making Way, where we focus more on education as a mean for our young talents to max out, becomes role models, and achieve their dreams? What a great idea. So when do you want to begin, Andrea? July 3, 2018, Tuesday at 11 a.m. Young Talent's Making Way summer edition. Stay tuned. Aloha, and welcome back to Think Tech Hawaii. I'm here as your host, Cara Miller, for Likeable Science. We have an amazing guest, Dr. Jade Delavu, here with us today, talking about her work around marine resource management across the state of Hawaii. Specifically, she focuses on something called Ridge-to-Reef Management. Jade, tell us a little bit more about what exactly is Ridge-to-Reef Management? And where did this system of management come from? So Ridge-to-Reef Management has been around for a very, very long time. And there's a lot of communities around the world that have used this watershed unit for managing their resources. So we can find a lot of those around the Northwest, Pacific, Asia, but also one of the richest area where we can find Ridge-to-Reef systems are Oceania. For instance, in Indonesia, there's the Tumbak system. In Fiji, we have the Vanua. In Solomon Islands, we have the Pua. And Hawaii, we have the Aupua. So what's very common across all of those management units is that the forest, the rivers, and the reef systems are managed as one unit. And you can basically adjust your management actions based on how the seasons may vary, the water flow, or so really going down to the local scale in terms of tackling the environmental. The human drivers are affecting our resources. In Hawaii, this Aupua system started breaking down when there was the annexation of the Hawaiian Islands by the United States. Land privatization ended up fragmenting the land. And so therefore, it became a lot harder to manage this system from Ridge-to-Reef as one continuum because there's more and more actors. And now, because it's under the state jurisdiction, there's a lot more government agencies involved in the process. And today, coordinating across all those agencies is also a challenge for this kind of management. So that's also part of the reason why the types of decision support tool that we developed through this work can help facilitate collaborative management. That's a huge undertaking. And I have to commend you because just working within one of the large management organizations for a stint of time, NOAA Fisheries Agency, for example, I know even just when one agency is at the table, there can still be a lot of trouble reaching a decision, let alone when there's a ton of different institutional powers and agencies and stakeholders present to make those decisions. So what do you view as maybe some of the biggest findings that came out of this study? And how do you view this being important for not just the communities that you've been working with, but for the managers as well? So what I found really, for me, fascinating on this project, is that it was a highly collaborative process from the onset of the research design to the completion of this project. I had the chance and the honor to work side by side with community members as well as managers and researchers from multiple different fields. So it's true that today our environmental problems require a transdisciplinary approach to be addressed. And so that's kind of what we try to do on this project. So we worked hand in hand with the communities to develop the scenarios as well as with the managers to look at what was feasible or not feasible in terms of future development, for instance. Then after we went back, we looked at what were the key component of the models that we were supposed to account for and started developing the first versions of the models and running this back again by local experts and local community members who had the local ecological knowledge to then tell us, oh yeah, this is where things are, this is how things are changing, this is consistent with our observations or not. Because another thing that is limiting when we do science is we don't always have the money to go back and collect a ton of data. So this entire project was done based on existing data only. And then to basically fill those gaps, I relied on local ecological knowledge where people who had an intimate understanding of the place could basically look at my maps and tell me whether they were consistent with what they were seeing. And then once we had the model calibrated, we looked at doing the scenario analysis, looking at how things were impacting the system. And then again running those outputs by the communities and managers being like, is this the kind of processes or impact that you're seeing on the ground? Is this where it's happening? So that was another way of trying to validate and ground truth our models using local knowledge as opposed to data, hardcore scientific data. You can say it. And then once we had done our scenario analysis, then the next step was to identify, okay, what were the management actions that emerged from those trends that we observed and running those again by the managers and the communities to see, okay, if we were to upgrade the assessable in this area, is this feasible? How much will it cost? And these are part of the next conversations that we will be having in the future. Now that we've managed to narrow down on the places that could be problematic for the reef, now the question is, well, how can we address that? Moving forward. Fantastic. So for example, where my mind is going right now, I know that just very recently, what was it one or two months ago, we had a lot of flooding that took place out here. I know just in the last six months, there was some serious typhoon damages to some of the other islands that personally I work on. How do you see some of these natural disaster types of events, the severity of them rising, increasing? How do you see that intersecting with some of your findings and management recommendations for the future? Well, so some of the things that we have observed, so after those floods happened, the community's definitely reported seeing a lot of brown water. For instance, in Hainah, I guess I'm talking because that's where the massive floods took place. The community did observe a lot of brown water around the lagoons that weren't clearing out as quickly as we might hope because of the wave action in that place. And part of it is because it's happening right at the beginning of summer, which is when the seasonal waves are not taking place. So we didn't have this dilution and mixing effect until just recently there's been a couple of swells in between that helped clear out the system. But I think moving forward, knowing that we can have those kind of extreme rainfall event, it's important to look at our floodways and maybe prioritizing the cesspools located in those floodways because these are the ones that will end up being washing out all the nutrients that are disposed in those. So these could become priority areas, for instance. And not only in Hainah, but in other places where we know it's a main groundwater flow, which usually intersect with streams. So all those kind of vulnerable habitat but also which represent our freshwater resource should be, yeah, wow. So coming from someone who's a little bit naive, I must admit about the freshwater resources for all of Hawaii, because I know we have a lot of people that are living here on Oahu and I know the water availability, freshwater availability and storage capacity varies from island to island. So as a state, if we're taking this state of Hawaii kind of approach to water resources as we move forward, and I know Ethan would appreciate us talking about water as well, what do you say regarding freshwater? I mean, to just people, for example, like myself, that's a consumer living here on Oahu, what would you say about our freshwater and how it ties into this larger discussion? Well, groundwater is our main drinking water resource. 90% of what we drink across all the islands come from the ground. So I think in particular for landowners, and I know it's expensive and even though the state is trying to come up with some tax breaks, but looking into removing the cesspoles out of the ground and replacing them with at least septic tanks. But I understand that it's also a huge upfront investment, but ultimately, because we are volcanic islands, whatever we put in the ground, our geology is very porous. So everything is gonna eventually leak into the water and discharge somewhere. Of course, every reef system is also very heterogeneous along the coast, but sometimes it will discharge in areas that are important feeding ground for a fish or important spawning ground for a fish. And we should try to avoid that. Right, well, this is all really useful and honestly, inspirational information that I think you've found through these models. We're getting to the end of our show, unfortunately. So what would you say as your final takeaways, key lessons, any parting words that you'd like to leave everybody with? Well, I think we should continue to look into empowering our local communities to manage their own resources and working with the states through co-management arrangements. And I think Hainan Khaopuli who can help teach us a lot of lessons about how to move forward using more co-management approach. And for scientists, I think understanding that we need to work outside our disciplines but also outside our wells of research and come down and meet the communities and work hand in hand with managers to then help us really develop tools and science that are addressing the problems of now and tomorrow's. Fantasticly said, Jade. And I think Jade had a thank you slide also that you have shown for your partner recognition. Yeah, I definitely want to thank my mentors and research partners and collaborators who have made this work possible and the community members for inspiring me along the way. Well, I think it's a phenomenal tool that can be used for a lot of different areas and people and purposes. So thank you so much for sharing with all of us about this tool. And I hope everybody enjoyed it. And this is again, Karen Miller reporting to you from Think Tech, Hawaii. Happy Aloha Friday.