HomeMy WebLinkAboutCommunication No. 2025-19 AMP OUTLINE - Draft 2Preliminary Draft Outline
5.31.25
ADAPTIVE MANAGEMENT PLAN
FOR THE KEAUHOU AQUIFER’S GDEs
A 1st Generation Plan for Keauhou’s
Groundwater Dependent Ecosystems
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Executive Summary
I.Introduction
•What is an AMP, why is it needed
•AMP good practices
•Keauhou focus: Coastal GDEs and 1st and future generation AMPs
•How this plan was developed
o Alignment, Phases, and Meetings with CWRM Staff
o Advisory Panel
o Working Groups
o Stakeholder Consultations
o Outside Reviewer
o Updates and public briefings to CWRM
II.The Setting
•The KASA described and Keauhou Aquifer “By the Numbers”
•Key GDE features and indigenous aquaculture sites
o Anchialine pools
o Fish Ponds
o Estuarian sites and near shore fisheries
o Other
•Foundational documents (initial list)
III.The Problem
•Starting assumptions
o Fresh water as the foundation for both economic and environmental
sustainability in West Hawai‘i
o All parts of a watershed “mauka to makai”, are interconnected
Communication No. 2025-19
o Decisions regarding Keauhou GDEs will affect other decisions about
fresh water withdrawals which have implications for regional
development
• Short and Long Term Threats
o Over development
o Contamination and pollution
o Flooding, runoff and erosion
o Sea level rise, saltwater intrusion, and altered precipitation pattern,
drought,
IV. AMP Goals
(1) Perpetuate a flow of fresh groundwater to GDEs sufficient that native biota
and public trust obligations to Native Hawaiians can be sustained using the
Hawai‘i Supreme Court’s Ka Pa ‘akai o ka ‘A ina decision and method of
analysis;
(2) Help directly decide or indirectly inform management decisions regarding
requests for future ground water withdrawals, including special conditions
that will be attached to CWRM’s pump installation permits and inform county
water use and development planning for the Keauhou region;
(3) Establish monitoring indicators, and potential triggers for permitting and
management actions related to ecological and cultural thresholds;
(4) Set in place a plan that will be continually updated by CWRM into second and
third-generation plans as technical knowledge from both Western and
Hawaiian perspectives emerges.
V. Methodology (to be more fully determined and updated in successive drafts)
(Establish key quantitative indicators, choose initial sentinel sites, gather existing
data and knowledge, establish monitoring procedures and monitoring tools,
hypothetical triggers/thresholds)
VI. Caveats and Uncertainties
• No fully complete inventory of GDE features
• The precise sources and flow patterns of fresh water coming to the GDEs
• GDE biota inventories
• Insufficient or contradictory current monitoring knowledge
• Black Swan events
VII. Expert Group Recommendations
• Native Hawaiian and ‘Ohana Traditional and Customary Practices / Kilo
o Participating Experts
o Recommended Baseline Indicators
o Assumptions behind the indicators
o Specific research for a 2nd generation AMP
• Hydrology
o Participating Experts
o Recommended Baseline Indicators
o Assumptions behind the indicators
o Specific research for a 2nd generation AMP
• Indicator Species
o Participating Experts
o Recommended Baseline Indicators
o Assumptions behind the indicators
o Specific research for a 2nd generation AMP
• Contamination and Pollution
o Participating Experts
o Recommended Baseline Indicators
o Assumptions behind the indicators
o Specific research for a 2nd generation AMP
VIII. Recommendations for Implementation
• Short Term
• Long Term
IX. Next Steps and Appreciations
Appendices
1. Participants and Persons Consulted and Meeting Notes
2. Literature consulted