PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR: Wendy Meguro
Co-INVESTIGATOR: Charles Fletcher
Sea Grant Graduate Fellow:
Research Track: Island Resilience and Sustainability

Since 2020, the interdisciplinary research team has enhanced Hawai‘i’s resilience by gathering feedback from hundreds of community members to create visionary and technical information on adapting to sea level rise (SLR). SLR is one of the most critical issues facing the world under global warming, with around 680 million people (10% of world population) living in low-lying coastal regions that are susceptible to flooding. Modeling by NOAA in 2020 indicated that high tide flooding will grow exponentially over the next decades, becoming a disruptive issue by, or before, mid-century. In Hawaiʻi, predictions based on the Hawai‘i Sea Level Rise Vulnerability and Adaptation Report suggest a $19 billion loss of land and structures from SLR, not to mention the costs associated with SLR threats to Waikīkī, the coastal economic hub of Hawai‘i’s tourism industry.

This new project continues the SLR efforts of recent years to inform local policy on the future built environment, to communicate replicable methods, and to identify synergistically improved outcomes for communities, the economy, and the stewardship of marine resources. The research team will use conceptual architectural renderings, which considering SLR-adjusted design flood elevations (DFEs), to depict building adaptation for Waikīkī, and will improve existing practices by addressing groundwater, direct marine inundation, and SLR-adjusted DFEs in more detail than the existing guides. Renderings and design guidance will be disseminated to public audiences through multiple avenues. The team also plans to provide a robust comparison of other cities’ methods to develop SLR-adjusted DFEs, and discuss their applicability to Honolulu, soliciting stakeholder feedback on their acceptability and issues.