S.M.A.R.T. SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT: Increasing Livability and Resilience to Climate Change

This year’s Climate and Society class is out in the field (or lab or office) completing a summer internship or thesis. They’ll be documenting their experiences one blog post at a time. Read on to see what they’re up to.

By Kaipo Dye, Climate and Society 2014

Photo: Galen Piehl/Flickr

Globally, communities are dealing with the impacts of climate change; some in similar ways, others more uniquely. Hawaii, for one, is extremely vulnerable to natural disasters and other impacts of climate change because of its isolation and dependency on foreign trade. That makes planning and adapting to climate change a particular priority for the state.

The islands are home to 1.75 million residents and host 8 million visitors annually. But many of the resources that sustain the people that live and visit Hawaii are threatened by current and future climate change.

Sea level rise is one of the state’s biggest concerns. It increases the probability of damage to Hawaii’s air- and seaports. Eighty-five percent of Hawaii’s food and 90 percent of its energy are imported. Yet without a functioning harbor, reserves would be depleted within a week.

In addition, temperatures are increasing state-wide and precipitation is steadily declining, which is reducing streamflows and reservoirs. Like other islands, Hawaii is 100 percent dependent on rainfall for freshwater.

Vulnerability in Hawaii isn’t a new concept to legislators. In 2013, policy-makers updated nearly 30-year old planning legislation with an amendment that includes the Hawaii Climate Adaptation Policy. That amendment requires that all county and state actions must consider climate adaptation in their land use, capital improvement and program decisions. However, at a local level, decisions still rest at the discretion of county decision-makers as to how exactly to incorporate climate information in a way that’s relevant their communities.

The U.S. government has also become more engaged with climate change recently. The White House issued a Presidential Executive Order to address climate resilience at the state level in November 2013. In Hawaii, that’s taken the form of a Task Force on Climate Preparedness and Resilience.

Governor Neil Abercrombie was appointed as a team member in charge of removing barriers to resilience investment at all government levels. About a year later, the result of these efforts was a new policy put in place to assure that future planning measures are S.M.A.R.T. (specific, measurable, assignable, realistic and time-specific), implementable and not just more recommendations that could inevitably be ignored.

Hawaii’s vulnerability to climate change is coupled with related sustainability issues. In an effort to adapt and become more resilient to climate hazards, Governor Abercrombie is setting the stage for Hawaii to become a national leader in both mitigating and adapting to climate change through his 6 sustainable growth initiatives. A problem with all of this legislation is interagency buy-in. Moreover, methodology for measuring progress without an accurate baseline or salient benchmark indicators is absent.

The University of Hawaii Sea Grant program (UHSG) — an affiliate of NOAA — is an outreach extension agency that is missioned to provide non-advocacy consulting and applied technical support to government and community stakeholder groups. The 2014 UHSG Peter J. Rappa intern will be investigating other county indicators and data sources that will be used to engineer a sustainability and resilience dashboard – meant to measure progress, provide transparency and assure accountability for agencies that prohibit smart growth and prevent climate adaptation and resilience.