From mauka to makai (mountain summit to the sea) Hawaiʻi Island features diverse climates that drive an equally rare diversity of ecosystems. It is, therefore, host to many complex shifts resulting from climate change. Yet after centuries of socio-ecological change, this island has remained resilient due to human adaptation and cultural innovation. This makes Hawaiʻi Island a revealing place to build upon our understanding of contemporary climate shifts while strengthening long standing adaptive capacities to change.

Hawaiʻi Island encompasses 4,024 square miles in the Central Pacific and rises from sea level to nearly 14,000 ft in elevation with five volcanic mountains (see map below). Tradewinds generate rainfall and clouds amid the mountainous topography while

interacting with a temperature inversion layer, creating unique climatic contrast and diversity over short distances and collectively forming an island resembling a continent in miniature (Juvik and Juvik 1998).

The island contains a wide-array of landscapes from barren new lava fields to lush wet forests and alpine tundra. Isolation and unique habitat diversity in close proximity fostered the evolution of the island’s remarkable biodiversity. This globally unique setting is, however, at risk to a wide array of climate change impacts.

Mirroring the ecological diversity, human communities on this rural island are highly place-based, experiencing a wide range of ecosystems and climates, embodying distinct histories of Native Hawaiian and immigrant cultures and home to a diversity of landowners and political arenas (McMillen et al. 2017). Prior to contemporary resource management systems, Native Hawaiians maintained an abundance of biological and cultural resources through the Moku System, which required a deep understanding of the structure and function of the land and seascapes. The Moku System created a mosaic  of socio-ecological systems by dividing the islands vertically to address resource management needs and horizontally to manage human population dynamics (Winter et al. 2018). This socio-ecological assemblage (human and “more-than-human” communities) elevates the island as a representative site for other locations globally that are working to be resilient and adaptive under a changing climate (Abram 1996).

Dive Deeper: Climate in the Pacific