RES 203 Draft 01 2022-2024 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Integrated Island , Greenhouse Gas Reduction and Climate Adaptation Actions to N Climate Action Plan for the Build Local Resilience to Climate Change � �� Limitations and s=uture Data Needs Framework: The climate action framework was developed to illustrate the cascading nature of climate change. The framework is intended to show Hawaii County's role in reducing our contribution to global climate change while preparing for the local effects. The cascading effects of climate change represent extremely complex interactions between global climate change and local physical, ecological, social, and economic systems. The framework captures how what we do as communities causes climate change, which in turn impacts our same communities. The framework simplifies this relationship and is intended to be improved over time as new knowledge, studies, and data emerge. Exposure and Data Availability: The climate cascade exposure analysis presents a limited view of the cascading effects of climate change, focusing on exposure associated with climate hazards and compounding hazards. Geospatial analysis of exposure is constrained by data availability. Greater investment in monitoring and analyzing climate hazards and impacts is needed to document observed impacts of climate change on community systems, especially native ecosystems. The analysis of overlaps among the various hazards used in the exposure analysis was limited by the following: • Greenhouse Gas Emissions: The Greenhouse Gas Inventory was limited by data availability. Due to limited island-specific data, Ground and marine transportation, solid waste, and AFOLU (agriculture, forestry, and other land use) were calculated from state-level emissions based on de facto population. Future inventories should include more data specific to the island. Further analysis is needed to determine the contribution of industry- specific emissions. • Air and Sea Surface Temperature Change. No geospatial analysis of climate exposure was conducted for air and sea surface temperature change (Climate Cascade 2). Literature was reviewed to describe cascading effects. An assessment of exposure and vulnerability of parcels and County infrastructure to increased temperature is needed, including parcels on which the County provides community services (activity type, vulnerable populations (i.e., keiki, kupuna), number of people served) and facilities with high levels of technology use that may need extra cooling infrastructure. To accomplish this, the assessment should follow a similar structure to the analyses for Climate Cascades 3, 4, and 5. The County should gather datasets on air temperature on Hawaii Island and stack the datasets to determine the vulnerability of County assets and sites where services are provided to determine the effects of increased air and sea surface temperature. Notably, projected changes to air temperature are not measured just by air temperature data, but also by surface temperature, land cover type, and potential evapotranspiration. These variables will need to be included in the stacking process to accurately capture air temperature trends and potential solutions, such as planting more trees in an exposed area (not something that we could do in an area that already has vegetation). As part of this project, the County should partner with the University of Hawaii-Hilo to utilize the Hawaii Mesoscale Network (Mesonet) data to use data from its mesoscale network of climate stations across the state. The County should also partner with the Department of Land and Natural Resources to utilize the urban canopy tree viewer co- developed with the U.S. Forest Service. • Wildfire. Wildfire mapping differs from the other hazard mapping used in the exposure analysis as it does not show wildfire risk over the entire island, but only the risk in populated areas. Climate Cascades 14