WRRC/IkeWai Seminar

Scenario Planning for Climate Change Adaptation in Hawaiʻi

by

Laura Brewington, East-West Center

To support growing populations in Hawai‘i, groundwater pumping is increasing, so an understanding of the interactions between future land cover, groundwater, and climate change is needed. This project used a participatory scenario planning approach with stakeholders on the island of Maui to create spatially-explicit depictions of future island land cover for input into a water budget model. Stakeholders first defined the focal issues surrounding land use and groundwater, which fed into four realistic policy scenarios linking past, present, and future conditions. Corresponding land cover maps were developed to quantitatively compare the effects of the scenarios on groundwater in a changing climate. The participatory scenario planning process ensured that the project and spatial products stayed relevant to stakeholders’ needs and adaptive management strategies.

Dr. Laura Brewington is a Research Fellow at the East-West Center and the Program Manager for the Pacific Regional Integrated Sciences and Assessments (RISA) program. Her work is applied and participatory, using spatial analysis in an interdisciplinary human-environment framework to identify differing stakeholder values and perceptions of land use and change over time and space. Dr. Brewington received her PhD in Geography from the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill in 2011 based on research in rural agriculture, invasive species, and conservation policy in the Galapagos Islands of Ecuador. In 2011 and 2012 she held a quarantine and biosecurity fellowship with WildAid, an international marine conservation NGO, coordinating a comprehensive evaluation of the Galapagos quarantine chain that highlighted the environmental and economic impacts of anticipated future expansion in the archipelago’s cargo shipping industry. Prior to joining the East-West Center in 2013, she also completed a post-doctoral fellowship with the Center for Galapagos Studies at the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill. Her work with Pacific RISA involves designing and conducting collaborative, policy-oriented research to support climate adaptation in diverse island settings, including Hawaii and the US-affiliated Pacific Islands.

Event Sponsor
Water Resources Research Center/Ike Wai, Mānoa Campus

More Information
Barbara Guieb, (808) 956-7848, barbarag@hawaii.edu

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