Examining the relationship between ecosystem service characteristics and their management: A case study of Hawaii’s watersheds and coasts

Background/Question/Methods

The concept of “ecosystem services” provides a promising framework for environmental decision-making that recognizes the relationship between ecosystem structure and function as they relate to human utility and values. Transitioning this framework into coordinated on-the-ground management, however, remains elusive, and there is little to no shared information about “who is managing what” across the same ecosystem. Using the Hawaiian Islands as a case study, this paper offers a framework for organizing information about coastal ecosystem services, their scale, and their management. The coastal ecosystem of the Hawaiian archipelago offers an ideal model for investigating the management of ecosystem services since the Island chain is: (1) geographically and functionally bounded, (2) comprised of a diverse set of management agencies tasked with managing a range of services, and (3) there exist large water resource and watershed issues that are divisive among stakeholder groups and the public. We administered a survey to 200 coastal management experts in Hawaii in order to address how the characteristics of ecosystem services influence their management.

Results/Conclusions

Our findings indicate that the management of ecosystem services is primarily influenced by type of service (provisional, cultural, and regulatory), and that each level of jurisdiction (municipal, state, and federal) tends to focus on different functional aspects of ecosystems.