Christopher Wada

Positive net benefits for an agricultural import rule designed to protect native Hawaiian forests

May 12, 2020

Photo by Forest & Kim Starr By Kimberly Burnett and Christopher Wada Since its first documented introduction to Hawai‘i in 2005, the rust fungus Puccinia psidii has already severely damaged Syzygium jambos (Indian rose apple) trees and the federally endangered Eugenia koolauensis (nioi). Fortunately, the particular strain has yet to cause serious damage to Metrosideros polymorpha (‘ōhi‘a), which comprises roughly 80% of the […]

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2019 Paper of the Year in Invasive Plant Science and Management

March 9, 2020

Congratulations to UHERO researchers Kimberly Burnett and Christopher Wada who were part of the team awarded the 2019 Paper of the Year in Invasive Plant Science and Management.

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Evaluating Protection Strategies for an Invasive Plant Species: Miconia calvescens

February 28, 2020

RESEARCH PAPERS ARE PRELIMINARY MATERIALS CIRCULATED TO STIMULATE DISCUSSION AND CRITICAL COMMENT. THE VIEWS EXPRESSED ARE THOSE OF THE INDIVIDUAL AUTHORS. WHILE RESEARCH PAPERS BENEFIT FROM ACTIVE UHERO DISCUSSION, THEY HAVE NOT UNDERGONE FORMAL ACADEMIC PEER REVIEW. The choice to shift among invasive species management strategies depends on ecological, biological, and economic conditions that vary […]

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Identifying priority watershed management areas for groundwater recharge protection on Hawai‘i Island

February 6, 2020

This report provides an analysis of the relative effectiveness of watershed conservation and restoration efforts in terms of groundwater recharge benefits in Hawaiʻi County Department of Water Supply (DWS) priority aquifers and recharge areas. In Kohala, Kona, and Kaʻū. With financial support from DWS and the National Science Foundation, EPSCoR ʻIke Wai project, this study […]

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Mountain-to-sea ecological-resource management: forested watersheds, coastal aquifers, and groundwater dependent ecosystems

February 1, 2020

Improving the understanding of connections spanning from mountain to sea and integrating those connections into decision models have been increasingly recognized as key to effective coastal resource management. In this paper, we aim to improve our understanding of the relative importance of linkages between a forested watershed, a coastal groundwater aquifer, and a nearshore marine […]

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Do Natural Disasters Make Sustainable Growth Impossible?

January 6, 2020

We consider the prospects for sustainable growth using expected utility models of optimal investment under threat from natural disasters. Adoption of a continuous time, stochastic Ramsey growth model over an infinite time horizon permits the analysis of sustainability under uncertainty regarding adverse events, including both one-time and recurrent disasters. As appropriate to small economies, we […]

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Contributions of native forest protection to local water supplies in East Maui

October 20, 2019

Tropical forests provide a suite of benefits including biodiversity, cultural value, and a range of ecosystem services. Globally, there is increasing interest in incentivizing native forest protection as a multi-benefit natural infrastructure strategy to secure clean and ample water supplies. In addition to conversion to agriculture and other non-forest land uses, non-native species invasion represents […]

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Characterizing Hawai‘i’s Natural Resources Management Sector

September 11, 2019

This report provides an update to the 2015 “Recent Trends in Hawai‘i’s Green Economy: Agriculture, Energy, and Natural Resource Management” publication, the second update since our original report in 2012. Hawai‘i’s natural resource management jobs were at least 4,697 in 2018, 33% higher than reported for 2014, which is equivalent to an annual growth rate […]

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Recovery of Lost Nexus Synergy via Payment for Environmental Services in Kumamoto, Japan

March 8, 2019

The objective of this study is to characterize and quantify the “trans-spatial nexus synergy” benefit of subsidized water ponding in the water-energy-food nexus in Kumamoto, Japan. After years of decreased rice production in upstream areas and associated declines in groundwater levels, the Kumamoto city government implemented a subsidy program whereby farmers in the Shira River […]

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