Waiʻanae Readiness Review launches effort with first community meeting
Group photo during Waiʻanae Readiness Review kick-off meeting. Credit: CRC
The Waiʻanae Readiness Review held its first community meeting on April 29th, at Kamehameha Schools’ Kaiāulu Community Learning Center in Māʻili, marking the formal launch of a year-long effort to assess climate vulnerability and build resilience across the Waiʻanae Moku. The project is led by the University of Hawaiʻi (UH) at Mānoa’s Climate Resilience Collaborative (CRC), headed by Chip Fletcher, Dean of the School of Ocean and Earth Sciences and Technology (SOEST) at UH Mānoa, in partnership with the UH Mānoa Wildfire Research team led by Clay Trauernicht, and the Resilience Office of the City and County of Honolulu.
More than 90 committee members, community members, and project team representatives attended the meeting, which opened with a pule led by Nohea Stevens. Presentations from Fletcher, Trauernicht, Captain White of Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, and Susan Veazy of the Office of Local Defense and Community Cooperation outlined the origins of the project’s funding, the process it will follow, and the overarching goal of securing additional resources for priority projects in the moku.
“We are honored to stand with the people of Waiʻanae in this work. Climate resilience is not something the University can define alone from the outside; it must be grown through pilina—with communities, government partners, agencies, and researchers working together in trust and shared kuleana,” said Fletcher. “The ʻike and lived experience of Waiʻanae families, farmers, practitioners, and leaders are essential to understanding the hazards facing the moku and identifying the actions that will protect people, place, and future generations. Guided by aloha ʻāina, this effort recognizes that caring for the land and ocean is inseparable from caring for one another.”
CRC researcher Kayla Yamamoto presented on compound flooding and invited community members to share photographs and firsthand experiences with flooding events to help validate scientific models. Attendees also participated in open discussion, sharing the most pressing challenges and needs across the district. Kealoha Fox of the Resilience Office delivered closing remarks that captured the spirit of pilina central to the project’s approach.
The Waiʻanae Readiness Review is structured around two committees comprising community members, farmers, government officials, military installation representatives, technical experts, policymakers, and non-profit organizations. The committees will meet six times over the course of the project, contributing their manaʻo and expertise to guide the work.
On the science side, the Climate Resilience Collaborative and the UH Wildfire team are developing climate projections scaled specifically to Waiʻanae, covering heat, precipitation/drought, compound flooding, coastal flooding and erosion, high wave run-up, groundwater inundation, and, importantly, wildfire. Given that wildfire risk is severe across the entire moku, the project’s focus is not on identifying where danger exists, but on determining what actions can be taken to address it.
The project is also coordinating with Hawaiʻi Sea Grant’s Pili Nā Moku initiative and the State of Hawaiʻi Coastal Zone Management Program to avoid duplicating community requests and to maximize collaborative learning across efforts.
The next meeting is scheduled for late May and will focus on gathering input on ongoing projects and identifying priority areas from committee members. Five additional meetings, including a tabletop exercise and a closing session, are planned through the end of the project year.
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