Hawaii First Water

Archives for December 2016

Oahu’s Ala Wai Watershed Student Design Challenge

December: (Editor Kobayashi Note:  In case you missed it, the UH announced this competition for students at the Conservation Congress to deal with the continuing problems of the strategic Ala Wai Canal In Honolulu.  Here is the timetable for 2017, use the link to the challenge website and good luck!!)

The Ala Wai Watershed Student Design Challenge, was announced by the University of Hawai‘i at the U.S.-hosted 2016 IUCN World Conservation Congress. The Challenge looks to unlock student innovation and creativity to craft solutions that address critical urban watershed and island issues, specifically, restoring watershed ecologies and exploring culture’s contribution to sustainable development.

The University of Hawai’i seek ideas from the brightest minds of our youth and students to help advance the collective goals and action agenda of the Ala Wai Watershed Partnership (AWWP) (e.g., stream and ecosystem restoration, green stormwater infrastructure, water capture and reuse, sediment control, flood mitigation, contemporary urban ahupua’a, Ala Wai as a destination, education and engagement with community/youth, coalition of teams with local participation, etc.)

Here is a link to the challenge website…

TIMELINE
Sept 5th, 2016 – Design competition announced @ IUCN-WCC
Sept – Dec 2016 – Outreach to students
Jan 9th, 2017 – Design Challenge opens
Jan 9th-31st, 2017 – Registration period
March 17th, 2017  – Design entries close
May 2017 – Exhibition of design entries at various locations
Week of June 25th, 2017 – Winners announced at World Youth Congress 2017

UH researchers link quality of coastal groundwater with reef

December;

(Honolulu, HI) Land-use practices on tropical oceanic islands can have large impacts on reef ecosystems, even in the absence of rivers and streams. Land-based pollutants, such as fertilizers and chemicals in wastewater, infiltrate into the groundwaters beneath land and eventually exit into nearshore ecosystems as submarine groundwater discharge (SGD)—seeping into the coastal zone beneath the ocean’s surface. In a study published recently in PLOS ONE, University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa (UHM) scientists used a combination of field experiments and chemical analysis of water and algae to show that the quality of coastal groundwater plays a major role in determining the health of nearshore ecosystems in Hawai‘i.

Various sources of pollution, such as agriculture or sewage treatment facilities, have identifiable chemical signatures, particularly the isotopes of nitrogen in the nutrients they contain. This study assessed groundwater quality, coastal water quality, and reef health across six different bays on Maui with various potential sources of pollution. By comparing the nitrogen isotope signature of algae tissues and potential pollution, the research group traced nutrients in the algae back to their land-based sources.

This study is the first to show the extent of the impact of wastewater injection wells at Kahului Wastewater Reclamation Facility, Maui’s highest-volume sewage treatment plant, on Kahului Bay. In addition to relatively high nutrient levels in marine surface waters in Kahului Bay, shallow areas were almost entirely dominated by a thick fleshy mat of colonial zoanthids, a phenomenon not reported anywhere else in the state. A concurrent companion study to this work, led by James Bishop at the UHM Department of Geology and Geophysics, found that water collected from beach sands, which represents coastal groundwater, next to the Kahului Wastewater Reclamation Facility contained up to 75 percent treated wastewater—highlighting the impact of wastewater in this area.

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