Hawaii Business Magazine is kicking off a yearlong series on Hawaiʻi’s water woes. The magazine is partnering with The Kūpaʻa Network, which has been the driving force for the media outlet known as Overstory Hawaiʻi.
Overstory has been featured before on The Conversation, and it is now rebranding as the Hawaiʻi Community Journal. HPR spoke with Hawaii Business Magazine editor Jennifer Ablan and Kūpaʻa editor Mea Aloha Spady to learn more.
Spady explained that 2025 was one of the driest years in the over 100 years that the state has been tracking rainfall, which is why water became a major focus of their new series.
Ablan described Hawaiʻi’s current situation as a “slow-moving water crisis” caused by rising temperatures, unpredictable rainfall patterns, and increased demand for water — and its impact is far-reaching.
“Water scarcity affects far more than drinking water. It touches agriculture, tourism, development and even public safety. Farmers are already struggling with drought conditions, and water shortages can disrupt major events and economic activity,” Ablan said, citing the PGA Tour’s decision to cancel The Sentry golf tournament due to ongoing droughts in Maui as an example.
“When water becomes limited, the ripple effects move through the entire economy," she said.
The solution? One potential remedy is graywater. Used water from showers, sinks and laundry can be treated and reused for non-potable purposes like irrigation and toilet flushing.
Kuilei Place in Honolulu is the first residential development to have an on-site graywater treatment system, and it is “expected to recycle about 30,000 gallons of water per day and save roughly 11 million gallons of drinking water each year,” Ablan said.
With its success comes the hope for more innovative water recycling technologies to expand across the island.
The focus on Hawaiʻi's water crisis comes at a time when Maui County is making more efforts to acquire private water sources and reclaim them under a public entity.
“This is where you can kind of see the overlap of how we will be bringing the environmental and social impacts into this conversation and some cultural context,” Spady told HPR.
“We want to be able to bridge those multiple perspectives alongside Hawaii Business Magazine to bring readers and our shared audiences in Hawaii a deeper and fuller understanding of this complex topic.”
To stay up to date and read more from Hawaiʻi Community Journal, their rebranded website can be found at hawaiicommunityjournal.org.
This story aired on The Conversation on March 11, 2026. The Conversation airs weekdays at 11 a.m. Jinwook Lee adapted this story for the web.
