Bernardo Vargas-Angel

2015

2016

Purpose/need: The Hawaii Coral Reef Strategy identified the coral reef ecosystem along the West Maui watersheds (Ka’anapali to Honolua) as a State Priority Management Area. Coral reefs in the region are severely affected by sedimentation and siltation stress, due to excessive terrigenous runoff from prolonged and deficient land-use practices. Secondary impacts include overfishing, nutrient loading, lowered dissolved oxygen, contaminants, toxicants, and elevated bacterial counts, from over-development and urbanization. In the Wahikuli-Honokowai watershed, a number of projects are being implemented to reduce, capture, and remediate the impacts of LBSP. However, because of the size of the area (Ka’anapali–Honolua) and diversity of habitats, there is insufficient data to adequately assess the recovery potential of these benthic communities. During the March 2014 NFWF-sponsored West Maui Ridge-2-Reef Researcher Workshop in Honolulu, the Watershed Coordinator and DAR highlighted the informational information gap that still exists regarding the status and trends of the reefs in the entire West Maui watersheds, underscoring that additional benthic cover and demographic baseline data are still required. Therefore, strategic status assessment and long-term trend monitoring of the health are urgently needed to provide evidence to assess the effectiveness of management actions to reduce land-based non-point source pollutants.Project status: In year 2 we expanded and the baseline assessments and in early August 2015 completed surveys for benthic cover and coral reef demographic status (structure, density, size class, mortality, condition, and recruitment) at 6 additional sites in the Kahana-Honolua watershed. We also interfaced with the benthic habitat mapping efforts that were undertaken in the area by CRED’s Ecospatial Information Team to provide sound ground-truthing. And, shared the results of YR1 surveys with Dr. Ivor Williams who incorporated those into the “Annual Maui Priority Watershed Area Status Report”. Year 2 field work was completed on July 31, 2015 through continued partnership and collaboration with West Maui Ridge-to-Reef Initiative, and DAR Maui.Outlook: In Year 3, we will collate all existing coral reef demographic data (from this project and other available sources) into a "West Maui Watershed Coral Community Baseline Report " to provide a contextual on the status and recovery potential of coral reefs in the watershed. We will continue to partner with the West Maui Ridge-to-Reef initiative, DAR Maui, and Ivor Williams (CRED) to include project results into the "Annual Maui Priority Watershed Area Status Report”. Related projects: We will continue to interface with CRCP project “Mapping and EcoSpatial Information Products to support Coral Reef Ecosystem Management in the Pacific Islands Region”, led by J Rooney aimed at producing accurate, current benthic habitat mapping for the Maui priority watershed and an integrated Ridge-to-Reef environmental geodatabase. Additionally, Paulo Maurin is submitting a complementary proposal aimed at providing a comprehensive baseline for coral and fish assemblages across the priority watershed (Quantifying condition of coral reef communities in the Kahana and Honokahua Priority Watersheds, West Maui)". We will work closely with the aforementioned projects, including pooling of all available coral data into our above-mentioned "West Maui Watershed Coral Community Baseline Report".

Tangible products are expected to be: 1) strategic and comprehensive assessment of benthic cover, coral colony density, size-class distribution, recruitment, and health condition for the West Maui watershed; 2) collation of all existing coral demographic data for the watershed; 3) assess patterns of habitat utilization for foundation species (those that have a strong role structuring the community) to provide a contextual framework of the status and recovery potential of these communities, and produce a "West Maui Watershed Coral Community Baseline Report" ; and 4) continue to work with the West Maui R2R Initiative, DAR Maui, and Ivor Williams (CRED) to support the collation of the “Annual Maui Priority Watershed Area Status Report” ; and partner with and Paulo Maurin to incorporate and pool the results of his work, together with all other available coral data into our above-mentioned a "West Maui Watershed Coral Community Baseline Report", respectively. The products resulting from this project will improve management and conservation efforts by: 1) Expanding the capability to assess the effectiveness of watershed management activities across the entire West Maui Watershed. 2) Provide the ability to identify new and potential of areas of concern (based on the demographic surveys above). 3) Based on demographic metrics, take a first cut at predicting the future of West Maui’s coral reef communities in the context of the attendant human disturbances. Dissemination of results by means of the West Maui Watershed Coral Community Baseline Report", which will be made available to all relevant jurisdictional and Federal partners.

• Hawaii

• Ka‘anapali-Kahekili (Maui)

Land-based Sources of Pollution (LBSP)

Closed

Completed

https://www.coris.noaa.gov/search/rest/find/document?searchText=projectNumber%3A1077%20OR%20projectTitle%3A"Determining%20the%20efficacy%20of%20watershed%20management%20in%20the%20Wahikuli%20and%20Honokowai%20watersheds%2C%20West%20Maui"&start=1&max=10&f=searchPage