{"id":388868,"date":"2025-11-19T01:50:20","date_gmt":"2025-11-19T01:50:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/388868\/"},"modified":"2025-11-19T01:50:20","modified_gmt":"2025-11-19T01:50:20","slug":"traditional-hawaiian-fishponds-show-resiliency-to-climate-change-study-shows-big-island-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/388868\/","title":{"rendered":"Traditional Hawaiian fishponds show resiliency to climate change, study shows : Big Island Now"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Traditional Hawaiian fishponds, or loko i\u02bba, are emerging as a model for climate resilience, according to a recent study from University of Hawai\u2018i.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Paepae o He\u02bbeia staff and volunteers work on methods to trap juvenile fish inside the pond. (Photo credit: He\u2019eia NERR)<\/p>\n

Researchers from the university\u2019s Hawai\u02bbi Institute of Marine Biology discovered that indigenous aquaculture systems effectively shield fish populations from the negative impacts of climate change, demonstrating resilience and bolstering local food security, according to a news release from the university, or UH.<\/p>\n

Their findings were published in npj Ocean Sustainability<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur study is one of the first in academic literature to compare the temperatures between loko i\u02bba and the surrounding bay and how these temperature differences may be reflected in potential fish productivity,\u201d said lead author Annie Innes-Gold, a recent PhD graduate from UH. \u201cWe found that although rising water temperature may lead to declines in fish populations, loko i\u02bba fish populations were more resilient (fish populations did not decline as much as fish populations in the surrounding estuary) to rising water temperatures than those in the surrounding estuary. This result is likely due to the temperature regulation that the loko i\u02bba receives from freshwater input, both at the surface and below the ground.\u201d<\/p>\n

ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW AD<\/b>ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW AD<\/b><\/p>\n

The authors found that the combined benefits of fisheries regulations, nutrient flow restoration, and restocking were found to offset some of the potentially negative effects of warming on fish populations and substantially increase short- and long-term estuarine and loko i\u02bba fish density.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>A hale and m\u0101k\u0101ha at He\u02bbeia Fishpond. (Photo credit: Annie Innes-Gold)<\/p>\n

Innes-Gold worked with an interdisciplinary team that included university researchers, resource managers and loko i\u02bba practitioners.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese findings highlight how important freshwater inputs are as a source of temperature regulation,\u201d said Innes-Gold. \u201cThey also support the importance of biocultural restoration in terms of enhancing fish populations and increasing social-ecological resilience in a changing climate.\u201d<\/p>\n

ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW AD<\/b><\/p>\n

For Hawai\u02bbi, the findings demonstrate the value that Indigenous knowledge and systems have on guiding modern science.<\/p>\n

\u201cLoko i\u02bba are a system unique to Hawai\u02bbi, and their restoration can have wide-reaching benefits including cultural preservation, education, healthy ecosystems, food security, and now\u2014from what we found in our study\u2014also climate resilience,\u201d said Innes-Gold.<\/p>\n

The team used mathematical modeling to simulate various management and climate change scenarios.<\/p>\n

ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW AD<\/b><\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s powerful about this modeling approach is that it allows us to test management scenarios we couldn\u2019t easily experiment with in real life,\u201d said senior author Lisa McManus, who leads the Marine Ecological Theory Lab at HIMB. \u201cOur projections show these combined restoration strategies can substantially increase fish populations even under warming, quantifying how Indigenous systems offer viable climate solutions.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLoko i\u02bba are designed to take advantage of natural ecological processes\u2014their design increases the residence time of nutrient-rich waters, so it makes sense that it would also increase the residence time of cooler freshwater and result in lower temperatures,\u201d said Innes-Gold.<\/p>\n

More research is being done to further understand how the loko i\u02bba functions and how it could promote resilience to climate change at sites such as the He\u02bbeia National Estuarine Research Reserve. The work was funded by Hawai\u02bbi Sea Grant, the NMFS-Sea Grant Fellowship in Population and Ecosystem Dynamics, and the He\u02bbeia National Estuarine Research Reserve.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Traditional Hawaiian fishponds, or loko i\u02bba, are emerging as a model for climate resilience, according to a recent…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":388869,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[14887,14888,746,185278,185279,48176,185280,159,67,132,26623,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-388868","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-big-island-news","9":"tag-big-island-now","10":"tag-environment","11":"tag-fishpond","12":"tag-hawaii-institute-of-marine-biology","13":"tag-hawaii-news","14":"tag-ocean-sustainability","15":"tag-science","16":"tag-united-states","17":"tag-unitedstates","18":"tag-university-of-hawaii","19":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115573858646312283","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388868","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=388868"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388868\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/388869"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=388868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=388868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=388868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}