Environment
Private Actions to Combat Climate Change Through Offsetting: The Story of The Coconut Traveler
By Kimberly Burnett, James Mak and Christopher Wada In late 2021, the United Nations (UN) held its 26th climate change conference (COP26) in Glasgow, Scotland. Among the many agreements that emerged from the conference was a coordinated plan for tourism climate action (Glasgow Declaration) to cut tourism’s global carbon emissions in half over the next […]
Read MoreCharging Visitors to Access Hawaii’s State Parks and Natural Recreation Areas
By Kimberly Burnett, James Mak and Christopher Wada Senate Bill S.B. 3192 S.D.2 in the current (2022) legislative session proposes to: “establish a visitor impact fee program, to be administered bythe department of land and natural resources, as a license requiredby visitors for usage of Hawaii’s public beaches, parks, trails, coastlines,and environment. The purpose of […]
Read MorePlease join us! Carbon Taxes, Credits and Offsets Webinar (3/16)
Join UHERO’s Makena Coffman for a webinar discussion on March 16, 2022 at 10-11 HST on the results of the 2020 Hawaii Carbon Pricing Study mandated by the Hawaii Legislature and the 2021 follow-up study. The title of the event is “Carbon Taxes, Credits and Offsets: Means for Climate Mitigation and Adaptation.” Carbon taxes, credits and offsets can […]
Read MorePutting Suppliers on the Map: Centering upstream voices in water funds outreach
UHERO’s Leah Bremer, in collaboration with a team of international researchers, showcases interactive ways to highlight the perspectives of upstream participants in Payments for Watershed Services programs in Colombia in a special issue on water education and outreach. See also interactive Suppliers on the Map website for more information.
Read MoreRisk to native marine macroalgae from land-use and climate change-related modification to groundwater discharge in Hawai’i
Dr. Henrietta Dulai in collaboration with UHERO and the Department of Life Sciences, sheds light on the links between submarine groundwater discharge and the health of coastal ecosystems. See press on Hawaiʻi Public Radio and UH News.
Read MoreTraditional and novel time-series approaches reveal submarine groundwater discharge dynamics under baseline and extreme event conditions
UHERO’s Peter Fuleky and his team conducted time-series data analysis and machine learning on a long-term, high resolution radon time-series from Kīholo Bay, Hawaiʻi to analyze the dependencies between rainfall, groundwater and ocean-water levels, coastal salinity, and submarine groundwater discharge. The analyses presented in this research are the first step in understanding what to expect […]
Read MoreOpen Access Renewable Resources, Urban Unemployment, and the Resolution of Dual Institutional Failures
This paper investigates how poverty reduction and natural resource preservation can be simultaneously achieved in a small open dual economy with urban wage rigidity, open access rural resources, and rural-urban migration. An increase in the export tax rate on the rural resource good increases urban unemployment in both the short run and the long run with resource […]
Read MoreShould Hawaii Levy a Visitor Green Fee to Protect Our Environment?
By James Mak Since the visitor to the Islands unquestionablycontributes significantly to the State’senvironmental problems, he will no doubthave to bear a substantial portion of the outlays needed for their solution. William Baumol1970 IntroductionMore than 50 years ago in 1970 when Hawaii hosted a relatively paltry 1.7 million visitors, Princeton University economist, William Baumol, authored […]
Read MoreDetecting religion from space: Nyepi Day in Bali
Daily changes in human activity are difficult to detect using nightlight imagery because many factors that influence nightlights are changing from night to night. We propose using a difference-in-differences methodology for detecting daily changes in human behavior using NASA’s Black Marble product suite. We find that total top-of-atmosphere radiance on the Indonesian island of Bali decreases by […]
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