Introduction

Linking Watershed and Groundwater Management to Groundwater Dependent Ecosystems and Their Linked Ecological, Cultural, and Socio-Economic Values

We develop future scenarios of cesspool (wastewater) management, forest conservation, groundwater pumping, and climate change to assess how coastal groundwater quality and quantity may change and how this may affect culturally and ecologically valuable groundwater dependent ecosystems along the coast of the Keauhou aquifer.

Linking Watershed and Groundwater Management to Groundwater Dependent Ecosystems and Their Linked Ecological, Cultural, and Socio-Economic Values

ʻŌpaeula, Hawaiian red shrimp, a keystone species in an anchialine pool in Kona.
ʻŌpaeula, Hawaiian red shrimp, a keystone species in an anchialine pool in Kona.

 

Veronica Gibson (Botany PhD student) is studying the linked social and ecological values of GDEs through multiple methods, including interviews with resource managers.
Veronica Gibson (Botany PhD student) is studying the linked social and ecological values of GDEs through multiple methods, including interviews with resource managers.

SPONSOR:
USGS Water Resources Institute Program

PROJECT PERIOD:
2020 – 2022

PROJECT PIs:
Leah Bremer, CO-PIs: Kim Burnett, Celia Smith, Henrietta Dulai, Greg Chun, and Aly El-Kadi

COLLABORATORS:
Chris Wada (Research Economist UHERO), Veronica Gibson (PhD student), and Brytne Okuhata (PhD student)

ABSTRACT:
There are growing calls from around the world to more holistically manage water for the multiple ecological, economic, and cultural uses. Central to Hawaiʻi’s public trust doctrine is the need to protect groundwater dependent ecosystems (GDEs) like fish ponds (loko iʻa), anchialine pools (wai ʻōpae), and nearshore ecosystems. Protecting these systems requires understanding the multiple ways they are used and valued as well as the ways in which groundwater pumping, land management, and climate change might affect these systems through their influence on the quality and quantity of groundwater. We use mixed methods, including archival analysis and semi-structured interviews to understand the ways that people in Kona currently and historically have used, valued, and cared for GDEs. This project is developing future scenarios of cesspool (wastewater) management, forest conservation, groundwater pumping, and climate change to assess how coastal groundwater quality and quantity may change and how this will affect valued GDEs along the coast of the Keauhou aquifer. Collectively, this research aims to help to inform decision making around interlinked systems of land and water management that have interacting influences on GDEs of high cultural, ecological, and economic value.

PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR