When a thunderstorm brought record-breaking rainfall to Kauaʻi in April 2018, the county didn't have a formal plan for how it would address the impacts of global warming. After seven years, that's about to change.
The Kauaʻi County Planning Department is on track to finalize its Kauaʻi Climate Adaptation Plan at the end of this summer.
Marie Williams, who manages the department's long-range planning division, said Kauaʻi is vulnerable to a range of weather and climate disasters like storms and wildfires. The new plan will offer a roadmap for how the county can prepare for such hazards.
HPR spoke with Williams and her colleague Alisha Summers about the details of the plan. Here are five things for Kauaʻi residents to know:
1. How are climate hazards impacting Kauaʻi?
The 2018 thunderstorm showcased Kauaʻi’s vulnerability to climate disasters. During the storm, some areas received over 50 inches of rain in 24 hours, which set a national record.
Subsequent flooding damaged hundreds of homes, triggered landslides that cut off access to Kauaʻi’s north coast, and resulted in about $180 million in damages.
"It took a couple years for some areas to fully recover from those impacts," Williams said. "We will be seeing more and we are seeing more intense storms."
Kauaʻi may also experience more wildfires due to increased risk from rising temperatures and prolonged drought conditions. Last summer, a fast-moving blaze came within feet of several homes in Kaumakani and also threatened the neighboring community of Hanapēpē Heights.
These events demonstrate the dramatic consequences of an increasingly volatile climate, but Summers pointed out that climate change is also manifesting in subtler ways throughout residents' daily lives and cultural practices.
She shared that during the drafting process for the climate action plan, the department spoke with a limu practitioner who has to go further offshore to cultivate limu, because nearshore waters have become too warm for healthy limu growth.
2. What are the plan's top priorities?
The plan includes 79 strategies for the county to adopt in the next 10 years to become more resilient in the face of climate change.
Of those, the department has identified 10 strategies that it considers to be top priorities, which can be found on page 29 of the plan.
Those are the action items that may have the greatest impact — but that doesn't mean they'll be easiest to implement.
For instance, the shortlist includes relocating residents away from eroding coastlines, a process called managed retreat. That strategy has faced pushback from some residents in coastal communities across the state.
Summers acknowledged that asking people to abandon their homes is a delicate topic, even if those properties will inevitably be damaged or destroyed by rising sea levels. She said at this point, any managed retreat program on Kauaʻi would be voluntary.
"We are treading very carefully and talking to the community extensively about how such a program could be developed," she said.
3. Does the plan include ways for Kauaʻi to reduce its own climate impacts?
Initially, the climate plan was intended to focus on how Kauaʻi can adapt to the effects of climate change. But Summers said residents also wanted it to include actions that the county could take to reduce its own greenhouse gas emissions.
"That was feedback that we got really early on and basically dramatically changed what this plan looks like in its finalized form," Summers said.
The strategies to reduce emissions include more electrification of the transportation sector, which is the county's largest source of climate pollution, as well as investments in more renewable energy projects.
It also includes novel suggestions like banning food waste from the Kekaha Landfill.
4. How was the community involved in the development of the plan?
Community members were invited to provide input at several points during the drafting process, and Williams said those conversations helped shape the plan.
She said one strategy that has received consistent community support is the creation of an urban forestry program to plant more trees along some of the island's sidewalks and pathways.
Expanding tree canopy in order to create more shade can help reduce temperatures in urban areas. That's certainly a climate strategy, but it also makes public spaces more inviting, Williams said.
"The actions in this plan aren't only about climate change, they're also about improving people's lives," she said.
5. What's next?
Once the Kauaʻi County Planning Department wraps up a final version of the plan, it heads to Mayor Derek Kawakami for his approval.
Then the real work starts — taking each of the suggestions in the plan and turning them into a reality.
To ensure that the plan doesn't just sit on a shelf, Summers said that each county department has its own division action plan, which can be found in Part II of the document.
She also expects the community will continue to play an important role.
"We have so many amazing community groups… doing wonderful work focused on addressing climate change," she said. "We really need to lean into how [we can] work together."
Find the full Kauaʻi Climate Adaptation Plan here.
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