Major Research Themes and Highlights
Research Themes
Under the conditions of the Cooperative Agreement, research in CIMAR is concentrated in eight themes, as follows:
- Ecological Forecasting
- Ecosystem Monitoring
- Ecosystem-Based Management
- Protection and Restoration of Resources
- Oceanographic Monitoring and Forecasting
- Climate Science and Impacts
- Air-Sea Interactions
- Tsunamis and Other Long-Period Ocean Waves.
Each of these themes is of major scientific, economic, and social importance in the Pacific Islands region, and each has avid participants from both parent institutions.
Research and Application Highlights
Monitoring Coral Populations. As threats to coral reefs increase in severity and frequency, researchers are looking for ways to increase monitoring scale and efficiency. Read more.
Dr Courtney Couch
CIMAR Supervisory Coral Reef Researcher
Sociopolitical Perspectives of Fisher-Shark Interactions. Fisheries science and management often fail to account for stakeholder conflicts and sociopolitical inequities. Read more.
Mia Iwane
CIMAR Fisheries Social Research Specialist
Surveying Reef Biodiversity with DNA Metabarcoding. DNA metabarcoding is redefining coral biodiversity surveys as a molecular method to identify organisms through DNA extraction from a homogenized community using barcode reference libraries. Read more.
Dr. Molly Timmers
CIMAR Marine Ecosystems Research Project Specialist
Relating Fish Populations to Coral Reef Architectural Complexity. Structure-from-Motion photogrammetric techniques allow for time-efficient collection of habitat data in the field, which can accompany ecological data on reef fish populations. Read more.
Dr. Atsuko Fukunaga
CIMAR Ecological Research Statistician
Improving Fishing Practices to Promote Shark Bycatch Survivability. As shark bycatch rates in commercial fisheries continue to push some populations towards endangerment, efforts to reduce the impacts of commercial fishing are paramount. Read more.
Dr. Melanie Hutchinson
CIMAR Science Program Manager for Fisheries Research and Monitoring
Ensuring Sea Level Data Quality and Dissemination. Researchers at the University of Hawai‘i Sea Level Center continue to ensure that tide gauge data from nearly 500 stations around the world are collected, quality assessed, distributed, and archived. Read more.
Prof. Phil Thompson
Director, University of Hawai‘i Sea Level Center
Empowering Ocean Users and Stakeholders. CIMAR researchers and administrators make fundamental contributions to the success of the Pacific Islands Ocean Observing System (PacIOOS) that empowers ocean users and stakeholders by providing accurate and reliable coastal and ocean information, tools, and services that are easy to access and use. Read more.
Melissa Iwamoto
Director and Principal Investigator, PacIOOS
Short-term (6 Days) Wave-driven Flooding Forecasts. As sea level rises, swell wave-driven run up and coastal flooding are becoming a significant hazard for coastal communities, equivalent to moderate-sized tsunamis. Accurate forecasts have become a necessity. Read more.
Prof. Douglas Luther
Co-PI, NOAA Grant for Enhancing Coastal Community Resilience
Water Velocity Profiles Collected on All NOAA Fleet Vessels. The NOAA research vessel fleet employs acoustic Doppler current profilers that aid a variety of NOAA programs and contribute to the global climatology of ocean current observations. Read more.
Dr. Eric Firing, Prof. Emeritus
Leader, University of Hawai‘i Currents Group
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Comments or questions please contact dluther@hawaii.edu. Last updated December 8, 2022