Kenneth Y. Kaneshiro Center for Conservation Research & Training, University of Hawaii 3050 Maile Way, Gilmore 406 Honolulu, Hawaii 96822 kykanesh@hawaii.edu
The development of the Tropical Pacific Domain is envisioned as a transdisciplinary effort which we believe is necessary to realistically accomplish the vision set out by NEON’s “Grand Environmental Challenges”. While an important goal is to advance environmental research and education capability in Hawaii and the U.S., we are deeply concerned about escalating human impacts in the Hawaiian Islands which are resulting in unacceptable losses to Hawaii’s unique biodiversity and culture which are coupled to increasing vulnerability to natural disasters (e.g. tsunami, earthquakes, hurricanes, and flooding) and emerging zoonotic diseases (e.g. Leptospirosis, murine typhus and malaria). Hawaii is ill prepared to deal with the consequences of such catastrophes in terms of the surveillance capability to detect and monitor threat occurrences as well as in the lack of scientific understanding about the nature of our ecological vulnerabilities. In order to provide a focus for this transdisciplinary effort, the “Institute for Earth Observing Systems (IEOS)” has been established at the University of Hawaii at Manoa to focus the efforts of an emerging team of engineers, ecologists, technologists, physicians, educators, social scientists, native Hawaiian cultural experts and citizen leaders who will collectively help to develop and deploy new cyberinfrastructure-based technologies designed to meet the next generation of environmental challenges in Hawaii. Our overarching goal is to develop a “new science” that will “… incorporate the interaction of nature and society, linking local to global to complex systems, while inviting other ways of knowing” (Hollings et al. 1998).
Our strategy for monitoring the complex biophysical gradients of the Hawaiian Islands to yield a representative view of the Tropical Pacific Domain is to develop “across-island transect corridors” within which integrated environmental monitoring will occur in swaths that extend from windward-to-leeward coasts of the islands of Kauai, Oahu, Molokai, Maui, Kahoolawe, and Hawaii. In order for this ambitious undertaking to be feasible, NEON Instrument Packages will be integrated with a new InteleSense-based cyberinfrastructure technology developed in the Hawaii EPSCoR Program (University of Hawaii at Manoa) in collaboration with Stanford University (National Biocomputation Center), NASA Ames Research Center (NASA World Wind), CH2MHill, Inc., Georgetown University (Center for Infectious Disease), and InteleSense Technologies, Inc. as well as local public / private Partners including The National Tropical Botanical Garden, The Waipa Foundation, Kamehameha Schools, Kumu Pono Associates, Maui Land & Pineapple Company, Inc., Malama O Manoa, and The Hawaii Department of Education. These entities will remain as Project Partners in NEON. “Across-island transect corridors” will consist of serial networks of monitoring sites enabled with wireless sensor technologies that will extend along natural gradients within select windward - leeward stream valleys extending over central mountainous areas usually coinciding with an islands highest peak. The width of corridors will depend upon valley width on a specific island to ensure that intact “mountain-to-sea” ecosystems are monitored holistically on both sides of islands. Sites will be equipped to measure standard NEON-required environmental parameters and with added InteleSense capability to include water quality in valley streams at multiple locations along the continuum to provide detailed information on surface water response to climate events along elevational gradients. Experimental sites either (existing or new research sites) will be linked to these “corridors” through extensions of backbone repeater networks and be provided with standardized sensor packages / cyberinfrastructure for incorporation into NEON data collection networks.