Indigenous coastal communities have depended on ocean resources over millennia, but climate change is creating a more unpredictable ocean by influencing waves, sea level, temperature and other factors, profoundly impacting remote coastal communities.
The Pacific Islands Ocean Observing System (PacIOOS) within the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa’s School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST) is collaborating with partners in the Pacific Islands, the Pacific Northwest and Alaska to improve access to ocean data for Indigenous coastal communities through a new project funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) Convergence Accelerator program.
The goal of the project is to get oceanographic data into the hands of Indigenous communities in a way that takes advantage of existing, lower-cost wave buoy technology and enables sustained community-led stewardship of the buoys. Through co-design, the team aims to revolutionize the status quo by providing new tools and new connections that will provide critical safety information at a locally relevant scale.
“Wave data, for example, can help a local mariner determine whether it is safe to fish that day or travel to another island to deliver goods,” said Melissa Iwamoto, director of PacIOOS and co-principal on the NSF project. “Our partners and users are asking for more ocean information to enhance safety and improve decision-making, and many also want more autonomy in maintaining the instrumentation.”
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http://www.hawaii.edu/news/article.php?aId=11696