Indigenous coastal communities have depended on ocean resources for more than millennia, but climate change is profoundly impacting these communities by creating a more unpredictable ocean.
The Pacific Islands Ocean Observing System within the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa’s School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology is collaborating with partners around the Pacific and in Alaska to improve access to ocean data for indigenous coastal communities through a new project funded by the National Science Foundation Convergence Accelerator program.
“Increased access to ocean data is essential for coastal communities’ safety and livelihoods,” said Melissa Iwamoto, director of the Pacific Islands Ocean Observing System and co-principal on the project. “We are excited by how this project will help us to quickly advance our goals to address our user needs through collaboration with new and existing partners across disciplines and geographies.”
The project’s goal 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. The team aims to revolutionize the status quo by providing new tools and new connections that provide critical safety information on a local level.
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UH Helping Improve Ocean Data Access for Indigenous Coastal Communities