Accelerating Climate Change Adaptive Capacity Through Regional Sustained Assessment and Evaluation in Hawai‘i and the U.S. Affiliated Pacific Islands

Abstract

As the impacts and risks from climate change increase, the climate assessment landscape has expanded in scope and application, resulting in the desire for more information relevant to local decision-making. Some regions lack detailed climate projections and a body of consensus findings about sector-specific impacts, and there is a need for actionable, culturally cognizant, translated climate information suitable for integration into operations and management, budgeting, funding proposals, and domestic and international policy. The Pacific Islands Regional Climate Assessment, or PIRCA, is the subject of this decade-long case study illustrating the need, development, and benefit of creating and sustaining a nuanced, collaborative, and deliberately inclusive climate assessment effort among researchers and practitioners in Hawai‘i and the US-Affiliated Pacific Islands (USAPI). Using external evaluations done in 2013 and 2021, and our observations as participants in the process, we describe regional adaptive capacity challenges—an important component of the decision context for PIRCA stakeholders—and analyze the role of the PIRCA network in accelerating climate adaptation. We also examine how regional and national assessments complement each other, and how assessment processes can aid in translation to sub-national decision making across the climate science-policy interface. Results reveal components of the PIRCA that are foundational to its effectiveness: framing climate information in human and decision-centric ways; use of inclusive and non-extractive methods; willingness to shift approaches to meet stakeholder objectives; leveraging the resources of the Pacific Regional Integrated Sciences and Assessments (RISA) and other boundary organizations; taking the time to build relationships; and creating a dedicated position to sustain collaborations and relationships within the region and at larger assessment scales. Our experience and the feedback received through the evaluation suggest that these lessons are transferable to other regions and scales, and that sustained and collaborative regional climate assessments can serve a key function in complementing major national and international assessments, by translating and more effectively targeting information to meet local needs in support of regional climate adaptation and policymaking.

Full text

ORIGINAL RESEARCH
published: 15 June 2022
doi: 10.3389/fclim.2022.869760
Frontiers in Climate | www.frontiersin.org 1June 2022 | Volume 4 | Article 869760
Edited by:
Katharine Jacobs,
University of Arizona, United States
Reviewed by:
Corrine Noel Knapp,
University of Wyoming, United States
Sonya Ziaja,
University of Baltimore, United States
*Correspondence:
Victoria W. Keener
vkeener@asu.edu
†These authors share first authorship
Specialty section:
This article was submitted to
Predictions and Projections,
a section of the journal
Frontiers in Climate
Received: 05 February 2022
Accepted: 19 May 2022
Published: 15 June 2022
Citation:
Keener VW, Grecni ZN and Moser SC
(2022) Accelerating Climate Change
Adaptive Capacity Through Regional
Sustained Assessment and Evaluation
in Hawai‘i and the U.S. Affiliated
Pacific Islands. Front. Clim. 4:869760.
doi: 10.3389/fclim.2022.869760
Accelerating Climate Change
Adaptive Capacity Through Regional
Sustained Assessment and
Evaluation in Hawai‘i and the U.S.
Affiliated Pacific Islands
Victoria W. Keener 1, 2
*†, Zena N. Grecni 1† and Susanne C. Moser 3,4†
1Research Program, East-West Center, Honolulu, HI, United States, 2Global Institute of Sustainability and Innovation, Arizona
State University, Tempe, AZ, United States, 3Susanne Moser Research & Consulting, Hadley, MA, United States,
4Department of Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning, University of Massachusetts-Amherst, Amherst, MA,
United States
As the impacts and risks from climate change increase, the climate assessment
landscape has expanded in scope and application, resulting in the desire for more
information relevant to local decision-making. Some regions lack detailed climate
projections and a body of consensus findings about sector-specific impacts, and there
is a need for actionable, culturally cognizant, translated climate information suitable
for integration into operations and management, budgeting, funding proposals, and
domestic and international policy. The Pacific Islands Regional Climate Assessment, or
PIRCA, is the subject of this decade-long case study illustrating the need, development,
and benefit of creating and sustaining a nuanced, collaborative, and deliberately inclusive
climate assessment effort among researchers and practitioners in Hawai‘i and the
US-Affiliated Pacific Islands (USAPI). Using external evaluations done in 2013 and
2021, and our observations as participants in the process, we describe regional
adaptive capacity challenges—an important component of the decision context for
PIRCA stakeholders—and analyze the role of the PIRCA network in accelerating climate
adaptation. We also examine how regional and national assessments complement each
other, and how assessment processes can aid in translation to sub-national decision
making across the climate science-policy interface. Results reveal components of the
PIRCA that are foundational to its effectiveness: framing climate information in human
and decision-centric ways; use of inclusive and non-extractive methods; willingness
to shift approaches to meet stakeholder objectives; leveraging the resources of the
Pacific Regional Integrated Sciences and Assessments (RISA) and other boundary
organizations; taking the time to build relationships; and creating a dedicated position
to sustain collaborations and relationships within the region and at larger assessment
scales. Our experience and the feedback received through the evaluation suggest that
these lessons are transferable to other regions and scales, and that sustained and
collaborative regional climate assessments can serve a key function in complementing
major national and international assessments, by translating and more effectively

Keener et al. Climate Assessment in Pacific Islands
targeting information to meet local needs in support of regional climate adaptation
and policymaking.
Keywords: Pacific Islands, evaluation, adaptation, acceleration, climate change assessment, co-production
INTRODUCTION
The Role of Actionable Climate
Assessments in Shaping Policy, Funding
Priorities, and International Negotiations
Actionable climate assessments such as the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Assessment Reports and the
U.S. National Climate Assessments (NCA) have been critical
in characterizing past climate trends and future projections
and their impacts (e.g., USGCRP, 2017, 2018; IPCC, 2021,
2022), shaping emission mitigation goals (e.g., IPCC, 2014;
UNFCCC Glasgow Climate Pact1; Hawai‘i Act 234 and 152) and
setting broad research and adaptation funding priorities (e.g.,
USGCRP., 2012; Green Climate Fund (GCF), 2020) at global
and national scales. Over the last several decades, the climate
assessment landscape has evolved from mainly global and large-
scale syntheses of physical mechanisms of change like those in the
early IPCC and NCA products, to integrated analysis and special
reports including social science and decision contexts (e.g., New
et al., 2022), sectoral and regional impacts (e.g., USGCRP., 2016;
USGCRP, 2018), evaluation of progress on adaptation planning
and policy (e.g., Halofsky et al., 2015), mitigation pathways
(IPCC, 2018), and extreme event attribution (e.g., Seneviratne
et al., 2021) at smaller spatial scales (e.g., Bedsworth et al., 2018;
MCC STS, 2020). There are benefits and challenges in increasing
the scope and reach of climate assessments for use by regional
and local decision-makers who need climate information to
guide adaptation and mitigation to address rapidly emerging
impacts on their communities. With the mounting financial
and societal costs and risks associated with climate change,
information such as climate trends and projections at finer
spatial and temporal resolutions, the interactions of impacts
across key sectors, and adaptation options are needed more
quickly at sub-regional and sub-national, policy-relevant scales
to support planning.
To accelerate the transformation of climate change science
into knowledge that is useful and usable at sub-national planning
scales, critical analyses of existing assessment frameworks
recommend expanding cross-disciplinary collaboration,
increasing the frequency of ancillary assessment products,
co-developing information and tools by including information
users in the assessment process, and sustaining the process
using networks of both government and civil society (Lemos
and Morehouse, 2005; Raes and Swart, 2007; Dilling and Lemos,
2011; Moss et al., 2019). Sustained interaction between scientists
and information users, at local and regional scales, in informal
1Advance text of the UNFCCC Glasgow Climate Pact https://unfccc.int/sites/
default/files/resource/cma2021_L16_adv.pdf.
2HI Act 234, 2007 https://health.hawaii.gov/cab/files/2014/07/GM1005_.pdf; and
Act 15 https://www.capitol.hawaii.gov/session2018/bills/GM1115_.PDF.
networks and through climate boundary organizations can
especially build trust in climate products and counterbalance
misunderstanding and the perceived irrelevance of scientific
information, as well as focus outputs to be stakeholder relevant
(Dilling and Lemos, 2011; Wall et al., 2017; Ziaja, 2019).
Going beyond these well-established and broadly
applicable recommendations, there are several unique
challenges and needs in the Hawai‘i and U.S. Affiliated
Pacific Islands (USAPI) region that make effective local
and regional climate assessments essential foundations
for accelerated adaptation planning and implementation
and for negotiations and global advocacy. Chief among
them are widespread climate data scarcity, varied political
classifications (Figure 1), spatial isolation, and the colonialism
that burdens self-reliant populations and creates persistent
funding inequities.
Need for Co-produced Climate Information
and Translated Research to Strengthen
Community Resilience and Adaptation
Efforts
At an organizational level, the process of collaborating to develop
“actionable” or “useful” climate research and information
with regional and local managers and decision-makers has
matured since the late 1990’s (Pulwarty and Redmond, 1997;
McNie, 2008; Prokopy and Power, 2015). As a framework, the
co-production process emphasizes principles of stakeholder
participation, interdisciplinarity, active communication, and
relationship-building among project partners to foster trust
in researchers and salience of scientific products for decision
making and related social impact (Cash et al., 2003; Jacobs et al.,
2005; Lemos and Morehouse, 2005; Moser, 2016). This process
of scientific co-production can be used to lay the foundation for
sustaining a robust assessment process (Lemos and Morehouse,
2005) that is applicable to adaptation planning in locations
with differing geographies, demographics, climate impacts,
decision-making needs, and sources of funding or available data.
Co-production of research and assessments is becoming widely
accepted—even demanded—as a methodological framework for
increasing trust and use of scientific information in planning and
management across different sectors (Lemos and Morehouse,
2005; Lemos et al., 2012; Meadow et al., 2015). Benefits of
co-production include: integrated decision-relevant contexts
from the conceptualization phase; increased representation
and diversity of affected stakeholders; and creating credible
policy-researcher networks that can accelerate actionable
science (Dilling and Lemos, 2011; Ziaja, 2019). Co-production
is useful in building a sustained local and regional climate
assessment process by increasing bottom-up participation
from diverse sectors of society, increasing climate literacy
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Keener et al. Climate Assessment in Pacific Islands
FIGURE 1 | The Pacific Islands region includes the State of Hawai‘i, as well as the U.S. Affiliated Pacific Islands (USAPI): the territories of American S ¯
amoa and Guam;
the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI); the Republic of Palau; the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM); and the Republic of the Marshall Islands
(RMI). Residents of Guam and the CNMI are U.S. citizens; those from American S ¯
amoa are U.S. nationals4. Under the Compact of Free Association (COFA), citizens
of the FSM, Palau, and the RMI can live and work in the U.S. without visas, and the U.S. is obliged to provide economic assistance to COFA nations. On this map,
shaded areas indicate the exclusive economic zone of each island, including Marine National Monuments (in green). [Figure from Keener et al., 2018].
and capacity in decision making contexts, establishing trust
and transparency through relationship-building, and framing
findings to directly address stakeholders’ needs (Lemos and
Morehouse, 2005; Moser, 2016; Moss et al., 2019). There
are, however, also documented challenges. For instance,
building such interdisciplinary science-practice relationships
and networks takes time, significant human and financial
resources, requires scientific data and models that match the
complexity of users’ environments, and is often not weighted
favorably toward professional advancement in academic
institutions (although this is starting to change, e.g., Purdue
University tenure3) or in rankings of traditional research grant
proposals, hindering sustaining these projects (Agrawala et al.,
3https://www.purdue.edu/provost/faculty/promotion/criteria-tenure- procedures.
html
2001; Lemos and Morehouse, 2005; Bolson and Broad, 2013;
Lemos et al., 2018; Moss et al., 2019; Meadow and Owen,
2021).
Challenges in Building Inclusive,
Regionally Representative, and Sustained
Assessments
There are several examples of national organizations with
regional programs that utilize concepts of co-production of
academic science and stakeholder participation to produce
4Rights related to citizenship vary in the Pacific Islands. Those born in American
S¯
amoa and Swains Island are classified as U.S. non-citizen nationals and are not
legally able to vote in federal elections or hold federal office, although they can serve
in the military, have a U.S. passport, and can live and work freely in the country.
U.S. citizens are also considered U.S. nationals.
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Keener et al. Climate Assessment in Pacific Islands
FIGURE 2 | The conceptual structure, functions, and stakeholders of the Pacific Islands Regional Climate Assessment in relationship to the U.S. National Climate
Assessment (NCA), coordinated by the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP).
“actionable” environmental science, including the NOAA
Regional Integrated Sciences and Assessments (RISA), Hawai‘i
Sea Grant, He‘eia National Estuarine Research Reserve (NERR),
Pacific Islands Climate Change Cooperative (PICCC, now
defunct), Pacific Islands-Climate Adaptation Science Center
(PI-CASC), Pacific Islands Water Science Center (PIWSC),
and the Hawai‘i Cooperative Extension Service, many of
which have contributed significantly to Pacific Islands climate
assessment products. The NOAA RISA program has been a
pioneer in developing, documenting, and implementing the
co-development process in climate research and assessment
(McNie, 2008, 2013; Lemos et al., 2014; Parris et al., 2016;
Meadow, 2017). Regionally focused and stakeholder-driven,
RISAs are competitive interdisciplinary climate research
programs that function as boundary organizations and
span the science-policy interface. The Pacific RISA, based
on the island of O‘ahu, Hawai‘i, serves the greater USAPI
region and coordinates the Pacific Islands Regional Climate
Assessment (PIRCA). The PIRCA is a collaboration of
scientists, businesses, governments, and communities in
Hawai‘i and the USAPI founded in 2011 to inform the
regional chapter for the Third NCA and create a process
to exchange climate information (Figure 2). The PIRCA
process and outputs used principles of co-production to
form an inclusive network of contributors and a reliable
assessment of climate knowledge for the region (Keener et al.,
2012; Moser, 2013), and addressed the barriers mentioned
above by leveraging coordination and human and financial
resources from the Pacific RISA program, the USGCRP, the
PI-CASC, the PICCC, and others, to establish a sustained
assessment process. An external evaluation of the 2012 PIRCA
revealed that while regional stakeholders found the network’s
first collaborative report highly credible and the process
trustworthy, the information did not fully meet their needs,
particularly in assessing sectoral impacts in the USAPI that
were not addressed in-depth in the first PIRCA report (Moser,
2013).
This case study discusses the creation and ongoing activities
of the PIRCA and documents its evolution through time
with longitudinal external evaluations done in 2013 and 2021
(Moser, 2013, 2022 in progress). We analyze the climate
impacts and information needs for the USAPI region, the
decision context in which the PIRCA functions for a variety
of regional stakeholders across different islands, the potential
role the PIRCA network and reports serve in accelerating
the creation of regional and local climate policy, the ways
in which regional and national assessments complement each
other, and identify transferable process characteristics that could
be utilized to aid in translation across the climate science-
policy interface.
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Keener et al. Climate Assessment in Pacific Islands
CONTEXT: CLIMATE AND CAPACITY
CHALLENGES IN HAWAI‘I AND THE U.S.
AFFILIATED PACIFIC ISLANDS
The USAPI region encompasses thousands of islands, more
than 300,000 square miles of land, and millions of square
miles of ocean, including 50% of the U.S. Exclusive Economic
Zone (Figure 1). The island region contains diverse geographies,
climates, political classifications, cultures, languages, histories,
and ecosystems that require different assessment foci and
approaches that resonate with the needs of stakeholders in
each location. As described eloquently in the introduction of
Indigenous Literatures from Micronesia (Flores and Kihleng,
2019), the Pacific Islands have a complex 400-year colonial
history with impacts that persist today. Starting in the 16th
century, European and Asian countries and the United States
successively occupied, exploited, and colonized the lands of the
Indigenous peoples of Micronesia, Polynesia, and Melanesia.
Hawai‘i and Micronesia were used as important transit points,
military hubs, sources of natural resources, and opportunities for
European and U.S. missionaries. During these several hundred
years, islands across the region were sequentially colonized by
Spain, Germany, Britain, France, the United States (after the
Spanish-American War), Australia, and Japan. As a consequence
of colonization, the lands, waters, and people of the Pacific Islands
were involved significantly in the Pacific Theater during World
War II (Poyer, 1991), with resulting widespread environmental
devastation and displacement of Indigenous people due to
region-wide warfare and nuclear weapons testing in the Republic
of the Marshall Islands (RMI) (Simon, 1997; Cocklin, 1999;
Yamada and Akiyama, 2013). Following the war, American
S¯
amoa and much of Micronesia—as the Trust Territory of
the Pacific Islands—came under U.S. administration. In the
1970’s−90’s, USAPI districts achieved independence with special
U.S. political affiliations or became U.S. territories, ensuring
U.S. military access through the present-day and economies
dependent on international aid and military spending (Friedman,
1997; Overton et al., 2018). U.S. military presence in the region
continues and has included construction of a missile defense
system in Kwajalein, RMI, and multiple major installations in
Hawai‘i and Guam. In recent decades, Pacific Islands have
been discussed in global media about climate change, with
the dominant portrayal of islanders as vulnerable, frontline
populations on “sinking islands” (Shea et al., 2020; Aguon,
2021) experiencing some of the most severe physical and
socioeconomic impacts from anthropogenic climate change for
which they bear little to no responsibility for causing. Very
recently, islander-informed media narratives may be shifting
toward a focus on the resilience of communities, adaptation
solutions, and climate justice (Shea et al., 2020; Aguon,
2021).
Existing governance and social systems can hinder climate
adaptation—planning, funding, and implementation. For
example, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands
(CNMI), American S¯
amoa, and Guam are ineligible for bilateral
and multilateral climate finance and are excluded from UN
agencies, programs, and adaptation funds (e.g., the Green
Climate Fund). Meanwhile, the Freely-Associated States of
the Republic of Palau, the RMI, and the Federated States
of Micronesia (FSM) are systemically under-represented
in regional island governance councils and are currently
ineligible for U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency
(FEMA) funding. The physical realities of living on small,
remote islands exacerbate vulnerabilities. For instance,
Hawai‘i has the most expensive electricity rate in the
United States, and more than 85% of food is imported
on most islands (Leung and Loke, 2008;Asifoa-Lagai,
2012; Keener et al., 2018). Political leaders in the Pacific
Islands consistently classify climate change as their primary
existential threat and advocate for aggressive mitigation
policies and adaptation investment to improve regional
environmental security, through, for example, the Majuro
Declaration for Climate Leadership5, the Boe Declaration for
Regional Security6, and recently, the Kainaki II Declaration for
Urgent Climate Change Action Now7, the strongest collective
advocacy instrument issued by Pacific Islands to date to
support their position at the UN Secretary-General’s Climate
Action Summit.
The region has historically experienced a high burden of
climate disasters, sometimes resulting in wide ranging impacts
to food and water security, human health, infrastructure,
ecosystems, and geopolitical stability. The direct and indirect
burdens of these events are often underestimated and are
projected to increase with climate change (The World Bank.,
2013; Keener et al., 2018). The damages resulting from weather
and climate-related extremes are rarely the result of an
isolated event. Rather, they are typically “compound” events,
occurring in combination (Raymond et al., 2020), and with
ongoing environmental, historical, and societal stresses. Recent
(spatial or temporal) compound events include extreme rainfall,
flooding and wildfire (Nugent et al., 2020); a particularly
destructive 2018 typhoon season; land and ocean heatwaves
and coral bleaching and death (Couch et al., 2017; NOAA
National Centers for Environmental Information., 2020); El
Niño and drought (Annamalai et al., 2015); and wave, tide,
and surge events with rising sea levels (Vitousek et al.,
2017). While the need for cross-sectoral climate adaptation is
great, the Pacific Islands are relatively data-scarce compared
to the Continental United States, and IPCC and NCA
assessments are insufficient to inform island-scale policy (Keener
et al., 2012; Moser, 2013; National Academies of Sciences
Engineering Medicine, 2021). Although multiple international
aid organizations operate within the region, there has been
5Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat, 5 September 2013. Majuro Declaration for
Climate Leadership. Majuro, The Republic of the Marshall Islands. https://
www.forumsec.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/2013- Majuro-Declaration-for-
Climate-Leadership.pdf.
6Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat, 5 September 2018. Boe Declaration Action Plan.
Boe, Nauru. https://www.forumsec.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Updated-
Brief-on- Boe-Declaration- Action-Plan-1.pdf.
7Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat, 11 December 2020. Kainaki II Declaration
for Urgent Climate Change Action Now: Securing the Future of our Blue Pacific.
Funafuti, Tuvalu. https://www.forumsec.org/2020/11/11/kainaki/.
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Keener et al. Climate Assessment in Pacific Islands
limited relationship building with in-country subject matter
experts, resulting in products that have not always met the
climate needs of local policymakers and resource managers
(Moser, 2013).
The adaptive capacity of islands when faced with increasing
climate shocks and stressors is negatively affected by regional
issues such as limited capacity-building, underinvestment in
infrastructure, social inequality, and multiple colonial histories.
In the CNMI, improper military and industrial waste disposal
resulted in contaminated drinking water (Denton et al., 2014;
Grecni et al., 2021). Following contamination after the impact
of Super Typhoon Yutu in the CNMI in 2018, residents
relied on desalinized ocean water (Gilbert, 2018). After World
War II, most of Guam’s population shifted from subsistence
farming to a reliance on imported food (Marutani et al., 1997),
which has negatively affected food security and human health.
Climate impacts such as changing rainfall, higher temperatures,
and more intense storms compound and hasten the decline
of local crop production (Taylor et al., 2016; Grecni et al.,
2020). In November 2021 on the island of O‘ahu, Hawai‘i,
it was revealed that tens of thousands of gallons of jet fuel
had leaked from the World War II-era U.S. Navy Red Hill
Bulk Fuel Storage Facility’s underground storage tanks into
the largest aquifer supplying drinking water on the island,
sickening and displacing thousands of families (Jedra, 2022). As
this example shows, even in the most prosperous place in the
USAPI, historical impacts decreased O‘ahu’s freshwater resilience
in the face of continuing drought (Frazier and Giambelluca,
2017) and reduced Hawai‘i’s future ability to provide freshwater
in an emergency and protect water resources—as mandated
in the State Constitution—for domestic and Native Hawaiian
traditional and customary uses. While downscaled climate
projections and other data are needed for adaptation projects,
science and data alone do not address the systemic and
structural dimensions needed to successfully adapt (Finucane,
2009), and some normative co-production processes can reaffirm
traditional boundaries when actors assert the dominance of
Western science and reinforce notions that it is superior to
other forms of knowledge (Daly and Dilling, 2019). Four-
hundred years of colonialism in the region that exploited
the islands for their strategic military value, resources, trade
location, and other extractive purposes resulted in communities
with limited capacity and a culture of drop-in consultants
and researchers (Finau et al., 2000; Braun, 2021; Lett et al.,
2022). These complex issues require a different approach
to co-producing useable climate information that is non-
extractive, culturally cognizant, flexible enough to incorporate
different modes of interaction, centered around relationships and
storytelling, transparent, iterative, and inclusively co-developed
with resource managers and local governments to foster
collective ownership and shared understanding (Amitage et al.,
2011; Daly and Dilling, 2019; Aguon, 2021). In fact, assessments
anywhere must consider the unique geographical, historical, and
cultural contexts if they are to make useful contributions to
decision making.
THE PIRCA, KEY PROGRAMMATIC
ELEMENTS, AND RESULTS
The Second PIRCA: Key Elements of
Assessment Co-development
Since its inception more than a decade ago, the PIRCA has
incorporated feedback obtained from external evaluation to
shape the ongoing assessment process and network’s growth
and inclusion of new expertise and areas of focus. As a result,
the expertise and topic areas that the PIRCA includes were
diversified in the most recent round of assessments. A frequent
appeal by those interviewed and surveyed in the 2013 evaluation
was to update the PIRCA regularly, incorporating new topics,
including identifiable trends in top priority impacts on key
economic sectors and human security, adaptation options and
costs, and cultural impacts (Moser, 2013). Moreover, respondents
to the first PIRCA, which was still Hawai‘i-centric, wished for
jurisdiction-specific assessments. The PIRCA coordination team
recognized that to fulfill these needs, a new full-time “Sustained
Assessment Specialist” (SAS) within the region was crucial, and
found financial resources from multiple partners to fund the
position through the Pacific RISA.
As a result of this feedback, the foci, author structure, and
processes for assessment development have evolved. The most
recent round of PIRCA assessments produced the Hawai‘i and
U.S. Affiliated Pacific Islands regional chapter of the Fourth NCA
(Keener et al., 2018), as well as island-specific assessments for
Palau (Miles et al., 2020), Guam (Grecni et al., 2020), the CNMI
(Grecni et al., 2021) and American S¯
amoa (Keener et al., 2021).
Other reports for the RMI, the FSM, as well as the initial work
for the regional chapter of the Fifth NCA are in progress as of
this writing. While technical writing teams for the 2012 PIRCA
were mainly subject matter experts from Hawai‘i-based academic
and federal government institutions, the 2020–2021 PIRCA
authorship varied by jurisdictional report and was split between
Hawai‘i-based academics and specialists in local NGOs and
governments residing in each jurisdiction. Additionally, between
25 and 50 practitioners from a wide range of management sectors
were credited as Technical Contributors for each assessment. The
changes in assessment characteristics in response to feedback
between the first and second PIRCA, and the status of those
same elements in regional contributions to recent U.S. NCAs,
are presented in Table 1. Authors and Technical Contributors
attended a workshop in their jurisdiction, which the PIRCA
coordination team planned and organized in partnership with
local co-authors and key points of contact from government,
higher education, and NGOs (Figure 3). In proximity to the
workshops, members of the PIRCA coordination team met with
a few Technical Contributors for more in-depth conversation
on key topic areas for which they had unique expertise. These
meetings were ad-hoc or opportunistic and were arranged in
connection with planning for or facilitating the local workshops
(Table 2). Following those workshops or meetings, Technical
Contributors were invited to continue refining the PIRCA report
for their jurisdiction in an iterative process of reviewing drafts of
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Keener et al. Climate Assessment in Pacific Islands
TABLE 1 | Key differences in characteristics of the first and second PIRCA, and the status of the same elements in regional contributions to recent U.S. NCAs.
Assessment Author structure and
composition
Main foci or topics Development process (key elements)
First PIRCA (2012) Hawai‘i- and U.S.
Continent-based authors and
contributors (academic and
federal roles)
Physical impacts (e.g., freshwater and
drought, sea-level rise and coastal
inundation, ecosystem impacts)
Workshops in Hawai‘i, involving authors and
technical experts; author drafting; review by
science advisory committee
Second PIRCA
(2020–2021)
USAPI- and Hawai‘i-based
authors (academic, USAPI
government, and NGO roles);
25–50 locally based contributors
per assessment
Human- and decision-centric topics (e.g.,
climate indicators; climate-risk
management; considerations for
households, families, and vulernable
populations; considerations for key
sectors; research and information needs)
Workshops and meetings in USAPI, involving
stakeholders in variety of sectors and roles
(govenment, NGO, business, and
academic/research); iteravite draft
development among authors and technical
contributors; review by advisory committee
with diverse expertise
Third NCA,
Hawai‘i and
Pacific Islands
chapter (2014)
Hawai‘i-based lead and
convening authors; 7
contributing authors
Ocean changes, coral reefs, and fisheries;
freshwater supplies; terrestrial
ecosystems; sea-level rise and coastal
infrastructure; human migration
Technical input report development (PIRCA
2012) and workshops; Author chapter drafting;
advisory committee review; pubic and expert
review; federal agency and White House review
Fourth NCA,
Hawai‘i and USAPI
chapter (2018)
Hawai‘i-based authors; 77
technical contributors, majoirty
Hawai‘i-based, and a small
number from USAPI
Water supplies; ecosystems and
biodiversity; coastal communities; marine
resources; Indigenous peoples; cumulative
impacts and adaptation
Public engagement workshops (1 in Hawai‘i; 1
in Guam); sectoral workshops hosted by
author team; author drafting; federal agency,
public, and expert review
Fifth NCA, Hawai‘i
and USAPI
chapter
(forthcoming)
USAPI-, U.S. Continent-, and
Hawai‘i-based authors; USAPI
and Hawai‘i-based technical
contributors (TBD)
TBD Regional Engagement Workshop (1 for Hawai‘i
and USAPI); sectoral workshops hosted by
author team; author drafting; federal agency,
public, and expert review
the assessment, and the PIRCA coordination team tracking and
responding to all comments.
The PIRCA workshops were structured to be accessible to
managers and decision-makers across a range of sectors, and to
elicit feedback on an early draft of the PIRCA report to further
develop the content. The PIRCA workshops linked participants
to the U.S. NCA process by presenting findings from the Fourth
NCA and describing a sustained assessment process in which
local and regional assessments gather and synthesize climate
knowledge and inform the national assessment.
Evaluation Methods
To assess how the ongoing PIRCA process is evolving and
responding to expressed stakeholder needs, we conducted an
evaluation between Fall 2021 and January 2022. It involved data
collection from two principal sources: a survey and interviews
with assessment participants and beneficiaries.
The survey was sent to a database of 222 individuals across
Hawai‘i and the USAPI. Respondents were approached by email;
22 of those emails were no longer functional (resulting in
an actual n=200). The 29-question survey was open between
October 13 and November 30, 2021 and received 60 responses—
an excellent response rate of 30% in an email- and social-media
saturated world during the COVID-19 pandemic. The majority
of respondents were based in Hawai‘i, but all jurisdictions
for which the Fourth NCA chapter and PIRCA reports had
been prepared were represented, as well as a few Continental
U.S. respondents.
The survey questions were prepared by Moser in collaboration
with the Pacific RISA team (inluding Keener and Grecni) (see
survey instrument in Appendix 1) and focused on the Fourth
NCA chapter and the jurisdictional PIRCAs, inquiring about
people’s involvement and contributions, their perceptions of the
report’s relevance, usefulness, legitimacy and credibility; the uses
of the report; future assessment needs; and for respondents who
knew of the first PIRCA, about improvements made based on the
feedback received from the evaluation conducted in 2012–13.
Following the survey, the evaluation also involved in-depth
interviews (conducted by Moser) with selected assessment
contributors and observers. The Pacific RISA team provided
a prioritized list of 38 potential interviewees, including
representatives from all jurisdictions and the Fourth NCA
chapter8. Of these, all the “very high” and “high” priority
interview candidates (28 individuals) were approached and 21
individuals representing all PIRCA jurisdictions and the Fourth
NCA chapter responded favorably and were interviewed. One
interview was discontinued (due to an inability to address
interview questions during a local crisis). The remaining 20
interviews were completed, with interviews lasting on average
56 min (range 27–92 min). Given the time since some portions
8Prioritization was done by Keener and Grecni and was based on factors such as
individual’s (1) direct involvement in either the Fourth NCA chapter or regional
assessments as an author, contributor or reviewer; (2) direct involvement in an
assessment-related workshop or event; (3) position in local government or other
key decision-making bodies that is likely to have knowledge of the assessment;
or (4) position in the federal government with direct knowledge of the PIRCA
contribution to the NCA.
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Keener et al. Climate Assessment in Pacific Islands
FIGURE 3 | The 2019–21 PIRCA workshops and reports explored climate change impacts and responses in U.S. Affiliated Pacific Islands. Photos on the left illustrate
example climate-related impacts: (A) Heavy rains that produce flooding, as pictured here in Nu‘uuli, American S ¯
amoa, become more likely as the climate warms
(Photo courtesy of Valentine Vaeoso). (B) Human-ignited wildfires burn a sizable portion Guam’s land each year. Dry conditions increase the potential for wildfire on
tropical Pacific Islands, and total acres burned tends to be higher in the year following an El Niño event (Photo courtesy of Guam Department of Agriculture, Forestry
Division). Pictured on the right are PIRCA workshops and events: (C) participants of the CNMI workshop; (D) participants of the Palau workshop; and (E) members of
the PIRCA team with Guam’s Lieutenant Governor and Co-Chairs of the Guam Climate Change Resiliency Commission (photo courtesy of the Pacific Islands Climate
Adaptation Science Center).
of the the assessment were completed, the consistency of insights
gained, and based on responses from those who were approached
but declined to be interviewed suggested that additional
interviews would likely not yield more useful information. Thus,
the lower-priority individuals were not approached. Interviews
were semi-structured, recorded, and detailed notes were taken,
then analyzed for themes. Recordings were destroyed after the
analysis. Some interviewees also sent written follow-up notes or
documents mentioned during the interviews.
The interview questions focused on nine topics (see
interview protocol in Appendix 2), including background of the
interviewee, participation in the Fourth NCA/PIRCA, uses of
the Fourth NCA outputs by stakeholders/decision- and policy-
makers (at local/state and federal U.S. levels), impacts of greater
inclusiveness in the Fourth NCA vs. the first PIRCA, perception
of the inclusive stakeholder participation at the national level,
the value of the Sustained Assessment Specialist position, other
information sources for decision-makers, barriers to building
greater resilience through adaptation, and emerging needs. The
interview protocol was reviewed and agreed to by the Pacific
RISA staff. Both the survey and interviews were determined
to be “exempt” human subjects research by the East-West
Center’s IRB.
Evaluation Results
Familiarity, Interest, and Perceived Relevance,
Legitimacy, and Credibility
A very large majority of survey respondents (>90%) and
all interviewees were closely familiar with the Fourth NCA
Pacific Islands chapter (released in 2018) and the jurisdictional
reports (released between 2020 and 2021) - a similarly high
level of awareness as was found in the evaluation of the first
PIRCA. At the time of the survey, respondents confirmed that
they had either heard of, read, or scanned and remembered
various parts of those assessments. Of greatest interest to survey
respondents in the Fourth NCA chapter were the Executive
Summary, the section on coastal communities, and the section
on adaptation. Those familiar with the jurisdictional PIRCA
reports found the sections synthesizing key issues for managers
and policymakers; implications for families, households and
vulnerable populations; implications for vulnerable sectors;
indicators of climate change; and on managing risks in the face
of uncertainty of greatest interest.
The framing of climate change challenges in human- and
decision-centric ways in the jurisdictional reports is in and
of itself notable. This constitutes an innovation in response
to the 2012 report (and thus does not allow for a direct
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Keener et al. Climate Assessment in Pacific Islands
TABLE 2 | PIRCA assessment workshops including dates, locations, conveners, and expertise represented held in each jurisdiction in 2019.
Date of workshop Workshop location Co-hosting partners Expertise of participants (academic or
practice)
June 10, 2019 American S¯
amoa
Community College,
Pago Pago, American
S¯
amoa
American S¯
amoa Community
College
Agriculture, coastal management, coral reef
research and management, education,
environmental protection, historic and cultural
resources, natural resources management, public
works, utilities, water management, weather
forecasting
July 23, 2019 Palau National Marine
Sanctuary
headquarters, Koror,
Palau
Republic of Palau Office of
Climate Change
Agriculture, coral reef research, cultural resources,
disaster management, economic development,
ecosystems, energy systems, fisheries, human
health, infrastructure planning, tourism, utilities
July 30, 31, 2019 Saipan, CNMI NOAA Office for Coastal
Management and CNMI Bureau
of Environmental and Coastal
Quality
Agriculture, coastal resources management,
education, extension, fish and wildlife management,
public health, natural resources management, parks
and recreation, planning and development, policy
and governance, public works, ocean ecosystem
research and management, utilities
October 29, 2019 Governor’s Complex,
Adelup, Guam
Guam Climate Change
Resiliency Commission; Pacific
Islands Climate Adaptation
Science Center; Guam Bureau of
Statistics and Plans; University of
Guam
Climate science, climate vulnerability assessment,
climate and weather forecasting, coastal and ocean
resources management, cultural resources, energy
systems, environmental protection, homeland
security/civil defense, nature conservation, planning,
public advocacy, water and environmental research,
water management
comparison of different parts of the assessment between the
first and second PIRCA reports). Survey respondents found the
sections they reviewed “somewhat,” “very,” or “extremely” useful.
Leading in this regard were the sections on the implications
of extreme weather and climate events for key sectors (96.7%);
and on families, households and vulnerable populations (90.6%);
followed closely by the key issues for managers (90.3%); climate
change indictors (90.3%); and managing climate risks in the face
of uncertainty (87.1%).
In write-in answers, respondents hinted at why and for
what the reports were useful, including having an audience-
tailored, concise, peer-reviewed summary and explanation of
climate change trends and impacts for funding requests, policy
briefings, education, and communication/outreach. This finding
is completely consistent with the first PIRCA report. However, in
comparing what respondents got out of the first (less detailed)
vs. the second (jurisdictionally specific) PIRCA reports, they
were six times more likely to agree than to disagree that the
jurisdictional PIRCA reports provided more regionally specific
climate information and more specific risk information on issues
relevant to their work, and 5.7 times more likely to agree than
disagree that the second PIRCA provided more information on
what can be done to adapt to climate change. The few who
indicated that any report sections were not useful to them either
were already familiar with the issue or restricted that judgment to
the less relevant synthesis of global climate change.
The legitimacy of the PIRCA process appears to also have
boosted the use of the reports by decision-makers in Pacific Island
jurisdictions. First, interviewees appreciated the deliberate,
careful and respectful approach to co-designing the assessment
process. Being mindful of not overtaxing individuals, strategically
timing workshop events, respecting local culture, and working
closely with island points of contact to identify all relevant
stakeholders was viewed as a key ingredient in people joining
the effort and viewing it as “with and for them” rather than
“about them” (i.e., a non-colonial, non-extractive approach to co-
design). Moreover, the engagement of practitioners and climate
change professionals in the development of the assessment,
particularly in identifying impacts, future risks, and adaptation
options, provided the structured opportunity for authors and
technical contributors to review new information regarding how
the changing climate is affecting, or is expected to affect, their
area of purview or expertise. As a result, assessment participants
were eager to apply information gleaned through the assessment
even before the reports were published. Soon after the workshop
in Palau, for example, the National Office of Climate Change
contacted the PIRCA coordination team to request use of the
draft PIRCA in a funding proposal to support the development
of the National Adaptation Plan. Familiarity with the range of
experts involved in informing and producing the report also
appears to have driven trust in the product among participants.
Interviewees, for example, thought “all the right people were
at the table.” But even among the broader survey population,
86.3% of respondents felt the development of the assessments was
“highly,” “very” or “somewhat legitimate” (this question was not
asked in the 2012 survey).
The majority of survey respondents also found the Fourth
NCA regional chapter and jurisdictional reports highly credible.
More than 72% of respondents found them “very” or “extremely”
credible, with <2% disagreeing with that judgment – a perception
of credibility nearly as high as in the 2012 PIRCA report
(although the question was asked slightly differently and had
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Keener et al. Climate Assessment in Pacific Islands
fewer levels to choose from, so can only be compared with
caution). Representative of many study participants, one noted,
“I now have [a] credible reference document I can use in my
work and studies that talks about my island home.” Others
found it particularly important to have such a credible report
in use with policymakers. That said, some 17% of respondents
couldn’t judge the assessment in this regard – suggesting maybe
some opportunities to convey the qualifications of assessment
participants more directly in the future.
Process Benefits
Survey respondents and interviewees appreciated their
participation in the assessment beyond the involvement in
co-designing the stakeholder workshops. Those involved in
shaping the engagement opportunities felt deeply respected
and were pleased with what was achieved. Noting that “many
make the mistake of not connecting with local people,” the
fact that Pacific RISA did was considered foundational for
the assessments’ conduct and successful delivery. In addition,
most survey respondents (71.4%) who participated in those
events as contributors to the assessment found them at least
“somewhat,” “very,” or “extremely valuable.” (This is a slightly
higher level of appreciation of these events compared to a
similar, but not identical question asked about the outreach
around the first PIRCA report, thus allowing comparison only
with caution.) More than half of the respondents (57.1%)
appreciated them as opportunities to learn from others what
they are doing to address climate change; 53.6% found them
valuable as opportunities to ask questions of experts; and
50%, respectively, also found them useful as opportunities to
learn about adaptation, network with others, and simply be in
dialogue with people about what to do. One interviewee found
the workshop in their jurisdiction to be “one of the best we
ever had.” Experts involved in the process were glad to not just
share knowledge, but also correct any information from the
larger regional assessment that did not apply to their particular
jurisdiction, while yet others were glad to have a forum for
difficult but important conversations to occur. As one put
it, “It’s a chance to force these necessary conversations with
local decision-makers.”
The educational value of those stakeholder engagement
events, together with the information contained in the reports,
cannot be overestimated. More than 62% of survey respondents
noted that they now have a better understanding of what climate
change means to their region, and 26% felt they can now
take climate change into account in their work. As such, the
participation in the process, connecting with peers, and having
jurisdiction-specific information at their fingertips, illustrates
that the assessment was perceived as empowering. “I have
useful recommendations to inform management and policy
decision making.”
Interviewees also spoke to another aspect of the assessment
process, particularly those who had been involved in prior
assessments and who had a keen understanding of the often-
extreme capacity constraints in the USAPI. Uniformly,
interviewees saw the value of having dedicated staff (a
“Sustained Assessment Specialist,” SAS) assigned to support
the assessments as “critical.” Particularly in a region that
thrives on good relationships, having someone focused
on building relationships was seen as foundational. Many
interviewees were aware and deeply appreciative of the
range of tasks undertaken by the SAS, including extensive
outreach to obtain robust input, communication, “cat
herding,” editorial assistance “down to the semi-colon,”
finding needed data, identifying gaps in contents, and so on.
One emphatically called the SAS “integral to the success of the
Fourth NCA.”
Evidence of Use of the PIRCA for Practical
Decision-Making in a Changing Climate
Stakeholders have used the jurisdictional assessments when
writing proposals for climate-related finance, communicating
with the public and their peers, proposing and developing new
law and policy, and integrating the information in management
plans. We mention just a few examples here. As noted earlier,
the PIRCA report for Palau serves as a technical resource in
the development of the National Adaptation Plan. In Guam,
meetings with legislators, legislative aids, and consultants to
review NCA and PIRCA findings informed new legislation.
Inspired by an adaptation option presented in the Guam PIRCA,
one successful bill in the Territorial Legislature passed a statute
that created the Tumon Bay Insurance Task Force, to be
comprised of representatives from across the government of
Guam, to examine the prospect and evaluate the feasibility
of parametric insurance for the beaches and corals reefs of
Guam’s Tumon Bay (Kaur, 2020a; Public Law 35-107, 2020;
Limtiaco, 2021). Other new laws prohibited the burning of forest
land and established a task force to explore the possibility of
establishing conservation areas on select Guam Government
properties that overlay the Northern Guam Lens Aquifer to
protect the island’s main freshwater aquifer, considering future
drought projections (Kaur, 2020b; The Office of Sen. Sabina
Perez Bureau of Statistics Plans’ Guam Coastal Management
Program., 2020; Public Law 35-134, 2021; Public Law 35-141,
2021). A training for territorial government staff, held prior to the
update of American S¯
amoa’s Hazard Mitigation Plan, highlighted
the PIRCA assessment as a resource and invited a coordination
team member to present on climate-sensitive hazards detailed in
the assessment.
Actors in government, including Guam Governor Lou
Leon Guerrero (Pacific Daily News Staff., 2020), publicly
acknowledged the PIRCA’s role in informing policy, revealing
key climate change issues, and providing consolidated, relevant
knowledge for local decision processes. Palau’s National Climate
Change Coordinator said of the Palau assessment, “This report
provides a glimpse of key issues... it serves as a guide with
suggestions to enhance our resilience to climate change” (NOAA
Climate Program Office, 2020). Shortly after the release of the
assessment for the CNMI, the report’s lead author testified as an
invited expert witness in a Full Committee Hearing of the U.S.
House Committee on Natural Resources regarding the Insular
Area Climate Change Act (H.R. 2780), which proposed new
federal programs for climate change adaptation and mitigation
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Keener et al. Climate Assessment in Pacific Islands
for U.S. Insular Areas (U.S. Congress, House, Committee on
Natural Resources, 2021).
DISCUSSION
Acceleration of Information Uptake for
Adaptation Decision-Making
Recent PIRCA activities demonstrate how regional assessment
efforts can accelerate the flow and application of information
from larger national and international climate assessments into
local-level decision-making by relating key findings to local
context and consolidating relevant information. In the case
of the PIRCA, jurisdiction-specific assessment co-production
processes helped to counter the information-overload effect and
perceived irrelevance of national and international assessments
by providing structure for climate researchers (some authors
of the larger assessments) and local managers to review the
larger assessment findings, examine their local implications in the
context of key sectors, and together distill the salient knowledge
for decision-making. In workshops, participants questioned
the “experts” about levels of uncertainty, leading to better
understanding among the group about points of consensus and
factors contributing to remaining uncertainties.
The regional assessment also strengthens national and
international climate assessment processes. Resource- and place-
specific details captured in the PIRCA reports make the
information available to a wider decision-maker audience, and to
the NCA, IPCC, and other regional and international assessments
that have historically not had access to fine-grained knowledge of
local climate risks and adaptations. By delivering nuanced, place-
based assessments in between the NCAs, regional assessment
efforts can serve a key role in an integrated and sustained national
assessment program (such as envisioned and described by Buizer
et al., 2016).
One value of the PIRCA products to decision-makers appears
to be the ability to use a single report as a resource and reference
document for climate change information. One participant
summarized this valuable function, saying, “Before we had
the PIRCA, we had to piece together the information from
other reports... so time-consuming.” While various climate
reports, documents, and peer-reviewed literature exists for each
place, the time and capacity required to comb through it
for relevant information can represent a significant barrier to
timely fundraising and addressing climate change in policy
and management situations. Both interviewees and survey
respondents confirmed that having a consolidated state-of-
knowledge helps to facilitate and accelerate the use of climate
information for planning by managers without specific expertise
or extra time. Meanwhile, participatory co-development of the
reports meant that some decision-makers across government
and NGO sectors were already familiar with, and trusted, the
basic structure and content, making fact and information-
finding easier.
Working in an assessment context outside of the Continental
United States necessitates a nuanced approach that differs from,
and can complement, that more commonly used in the NCA
and international climate assessments. As a crucial point of
departure, well-established multi-state and country assessments
have traditionally placed a large emphasis on the findings of
peer-reviewed articles and expert consensus; however, a dearth of
published data and literature in the USAPI led the PIRCA team
to rely on partnerships with local researchers and practitioners, in
NGOs, government, and academic institutions, to source relevant
data, traditional knowledge, and recent research findings, much
of it “gray literature” or not yet published. Workshop discussion
sessions allowed an informal prioritization of climate issues in
terms of locally perceived levels of risk and consequence, and
to understand, if only anecdotally, the climate impacts and
risks not yet scientifically documented. Even in regions where
relatively more published literature and data exist, the inclusion
of local and traditional knowledge can imbue assessments with
greater legitimacy and credibility among local stakeholders and
allow frontline communities to enter policy discussions by
bringing their own words, experiences, and forms of knowledge
into decision-making spaces where they are often absent (Daly
and Dilling, 2019; Davis and Ramirez-Andreotta, 2021). The
PIRCA use-cases further demonstrate that bringing together
various actors who hold different knowledges can promote social
learning, shared understandings, and “collective ownership”
(Amitage et al., 2011). Subnational assessment efforts, in their
participatory development, can foster these critical functions,
which are needed across all U.S. regions if adaptation is
to increase.
Interviewees pointed to an important impact of the Fourth
NCA Pacific Islands chapter on the overall NCA process in
this regard, which can be read as an aid in the acceleration
of information provision and uptake. Following the urging of
one of the Fourth NCA convening lead authors, the USGCRP
formally accepted Indigenous knowledge (only available in the
oral tradition) as equivalent to scientific knowledge without
having to be peer-reviewed. In a scientifically data-scarce and
capacity-limited region such as the small-island states in the
Pacific, much long-term observational information would have
to be ignored if it could only be included in an assessment once it
is reflected in the peer-reviewed literature. Thus, getting local and
traditional ecological knowledge accepted as valid and equivalent
to scientifically acquired knowledge has helped speed up the
assessment process and address issues of knowledge-equity in
climate adaptation planning. Combining it with the available
scientific information in one report, the time to information use
is significantly reduced.
Adjusting Assessment Methods to
Resonate in Different Geographical
Contexts
In each of the jurisdictions, PIRCA engagement linked directly
or indirectly with local governance and policy entities by,
for example, aligning outreach with the launch of the Guam
Climate Change Commission and co-hosting a workshop with
Palau’s National Office of Climate Change. The format and
timing of workshops adapted to fit into partners’ already
planned convenings and were sometimes “nested” within broader
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Keener et al. Climate Assessment in Pacific Islands
meeting agendas. The underlying logic for the adaptable
workshops approach was twofold: (1) to avoid burdening
over-tapped stakeholders who participate in many, often
overlapping, planning and input activities; and (2) to embed
the final assessments within, or have direct relevance to, local
governance frameworks and processes. This points to the notion
of a “sustained assessment” that aims at building ongoing
relationships between researchers/assessors and practitioners
(Moss et al., 2019), rather than a “stop-and-go” approach more
common in the NCAs. Ongoing relationships may limit the
repeatedly needed intense ramp-up of stakeholder relationships,
and also avoid drawing on the same stakeholders again and again.
This is a lesson that applies widely to other NCA regions, given
the frequently mentioned challenge of “stakeholder fatigue” (e.g.,
Cooke and Kothari, 2001; Reed, 2008; Chu et al., 2016).
That the PIRCA is a network does not imply that the
engagement and co-production model is merely replicated across
all jurisdictions. Interviewees repeatedly noted how the Pacific
RISA team understood the need for such a nuanced approach,
banking on the cognizant leadership of local contacts to frame
the assessment and navigate local politics. Those relationships
then enabled engagement with groups that is respectful of
local culture and customs, which differ among jurisdictions.
The team made decisions on the process and products that
intentionally aligned with local culture, language, technology
use, and values, for example translating a summary into local
language (Samoan), structuring daily agendas to include cultural
protocol and meetings with dignitaries or elders, and inclusion
of meals with appropriate foods at workshops. A focus on key
sectors, both in the structured engagement and the assessment
reports, rather than the drivers of climate change impacts,
further emphasized the relevance of the assessments to the
stakeholders’ governance and management responsibilities and
purview. Regional and local climate assessment efforts that shift
their methods or approach to meet the objectives and fit into the
agenda of decision-making bodies may go farther in their quest
for user uptake than those efforts that remain detached from
local governance.
Assessment and Learning Networks as
Climate Boundary Organizations
Trust in the Pacific RISA as a boundary organization and as
a central player and coordinator of the PIRCA had already
been built in the years leading up to the most recent round
of assessments (Moser, 2013). Boundary organizations provide
a distinct and helpful interface for the exchange between
science and policy or practice, with accountability to both sides,
and critical translating, negotiation, and interface management
functions (Guston, 1999; Gustafsson and Lidskog, 2018;Ziaja,
2019). While the design of the interface varies, boundary
organizations as formal networks facilitate the exchange of
climate information in quickly-evolving contexts and in more
informal networks (Ziaja, 2019), such as the PIRCA. The
evaluation of the Fourth NCA regional chapter and jurisdictional
PIRCA reports suggests that the central role of Pacific RISA
has only been solidified, as the lead coordinators and authors
have in many cases become the initial contacts for decision-
makers seeking trusted climate information on a short timeline
or interested in proposing a project to meet a local need. Pacific
RISA works actively and swiftly to connect researchers with
practitioners while responding to requests and questions as a
trusted source of climate information. Thus its partners learn and
can build up their capacity to address climate change; in turn,
Pacific RISA staff learn from local partners about the realities and
challenges on the ground, which informs its research agenda, and
the conduct of assessments. As one interviewee concluded, “If
they continue [this careful approach to assessments] with NCA5,
they [Pacific RISA] will become a real flagship in the Pacific.... like
SPREP for disasters”9.
In considering the success of the Pacific RISA as a regional
boundary organization effective in the NCA, a critical factor—
as described above—was a dedicated and full-time science-policy
boundary spanning position, the Pacific Islands SAS (NOAA
Regional Integrated Science Assessments (RISA) Program, 2021).
The role of the SAS was central to building relationships
and maintaining the PIRCA networks in the region over
years, assessment products, and as partner organizations and
administrations came and went, and is a necessary role for
assessment success that can be transferred across regions.
CONCLUSION
The PIRCA is a decade-long case study illustrating the need,
development, and benefit of sustaining an iterative process of
building trusted relationships as the all-essential foundation for
a collaborative climate assessment effort with researchers and
practitioners in Hawai‘i and the U.S. Affiliated Pacific Islands.
Because of the expansive area, diverse cultures and geographies,
colonial histories, and variation in the availability of peer-
reviewed literature and data, a nuanced approach to climate
assessment was used that considered expertise, information,
context, and outputs needed at different island scales. Regional
and local climate assessment efforts that shift their methods
or approach to meet the objectives and fit into the agendas of
decision-making bodies in our experience go farther in their
quest for user uptake than those efforts that remain detached
from local governance and historical context.
Recent PIRCA activities demonstrate how regional assessment
efforts can accelerate the flow and application of information
from larger national and international climate assessments into
local-level decision-making by relating key findings to local
context and consolidating relevant information. In defining itself
as a collaborative climate science boundary organization with
a dedicated Sustained Assessment Specialist to coordinate and
build relationships, the PIRCA is growing as a go-to trusted
resource and as a network of actors that is essential for translating
rigorous climate research and multiple forms of knowledge into
relevant management and policy outcomes at local and regional
levels. Our experience and the feedback received through the
9SPREP, the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme, is
a well-known intergovernmental organization headquartered in Apia, S¯
amoa
(see: https://www.sprep.org/about-us).
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Keener et al. Climate Assessment in Pacific Islands
evaluation suggest that sustained and collaborative regional
climate assessments can serve a key function in complementing
major national and international assessments, by more effectively
targeting information needs at local and regional climate
adaptation and policymaking.
DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT
The raw data supporting the conclusions of this article will be
made available by the authors, without undue reservation.
ETHICS STATEMENT
The study involved human participants and thus were reviewed
and approved by the East-West Center IRB. The study was found
to be exempt, and thus participants were not required to provide
their written informed consent to participate in this study.
AUTHOR CONTRIBUTIONS
VK and ZG conceived of the case study presented. VK developed
the initial theory and established the framework, and ZG
expanded upon and coordinated the project. VK, ZG, and SM
planned the evaluation approach and developed the survey
and interview questions collaboratively, integrated evaluation
findings into the PIRCA process and products, and co-wrote the
manuscript and provided critical insight into the findings. SM
collected, analyzed the survey, and interview data. All authors
contributed to the article and approved the submitted version.
FUNDING
This ongoing work was supported by the NOAA Regional
Integrated Sciences and Assessments (RISA) Program grants
NA15OAR4310146 and NA20OAR4310146A, the East-West
Center, and the DOI Pacific Islands Climate Adaptation Science
Center grant G15AC00509.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The PIRCA is a collaborative network, and we acknowledge that
the PIRCA reports were made possible through the collective
efforts of the dozens of technical contributors, coordinating
authors, and the PIRCA Advisory Committee. We thank
them for providing their expertise, meeting facilities, writing
and editing, figures and images, data analysis, facilitation,
language translation services, and advice. We acknowledge
the organizations that provided funding for and leadership in
creating and sustaining the PIRCA network: the East-West
Center, the NOAA RISA program, the PI-CASC, and the
USGCRP. We also acknowledge the input from and thank the key
informants and survey respondents who donated their time and
insights during the evaluation to improve the sustained PIRCA
process and outputs.
SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL
The Supplementary Material for this article can be found
online at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fclim.
2022.869760/full#supplementary-material
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Conflict of Interest: SM was employed by Susanne Moser Research & Consulting.
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Frontiers in Climate | www.frontiersin.org 16 June 2022 | Volume 4 | Article 869760