The Ahupua‘a, the Reef, and the Landscape Architect: Designing on Land Intentionally for the Water Olowalu, Maui
Kiana Michelle Dai
Master of Landscape Architecture Candidate
University of Hawai‘i School of Architecture Spring 2024
The Ahupua‘a, the Reef, and the Landscape Architect: Designing on Land Intentionally for the Water
A capstone design research project submitted in partial fulfillment of the Plan B requirements for the degree of MASTER OF
LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE
May 2024 By Kiana
Michelle Dai
Capstone committee:
Judith Stilgenbauer, Chairperson
Phoebe White, Capstone Studio Instructor
Keywords: Sediment, Runoff, Stormwater, Nature
Based Solutions, Traditional Ecological Knowledge, Phytoremediation
Acknowledgments
I want to thank my family, especially my mom, my brother Chris, and my in-laws Vinh and Phi. Mom, thank you for being so supportive of this big career change and helping me believe when I didn’t feel like I could go on. Your wisdom and coaching me on the phone are much of what got me through this program. I am so grateful for your guidance, humor and love.
Phoebe, Judith, and the School of Architecture community, thank you for giving me opportunities to explore many aspects of design, and always pushing me to do my best.
A huge mahalo to my friends I’ve made in Hawai‘ i: my fellow grad school commiserant, Susannah, the Stringer ʻOhana, Liana, and my Intervarsity ʻOhana. Doing hard things is much better in community, and I’m grateful to have found one full of such joy, hope, and affirmation.
To my friends here today who flew out to see me graduate, thank you for your cheerleading from near and far. I cherish our friendships and getting to accompany each other through all stages of our lives. It means the world to me that you are here!
Most importantly, I want to thank my husband Jonny for being my steadfast support throughout the entire time in grad school. I could not have gone through these last four years without your humor, kindness, compassion, and willingness to wash way more of the dishes. I’m so lucky to live my life with such an amazing partner, and am grateful we get to grow up together in each stage of our lives. I love you!!
Mahalo Nui Loa, Hawaiʻi Nei, for the opportunity to learn in your ‘āina.
Introduction + Methodology
abstract
There is a need for landscape architects to continue pushing the boundaries of their design scope past sites, into holistic, watershed scale design. By designing for sensitive and critical offshore habitats, such as coral reefs in Hawaiʻi, designers have incentive to look at the impacts of water and sediment movement throughout the entire watershed. Without this approach, tropical and subtropical regions around the world will be unable to reach their coral reef conservation goals, considering land based pollutants as some of the biggest sources of localized reef threats (NOAA, 2015). Although there are many examples of landscape architecture focused on living shorelines, stormwater infrastructure, and runoff, , there is still need to further integrate indigenous biocultural knowledge, design precedents, and western conservation science into the landscape architect’s ʻtoolkit’ to truly to
be resilient to the complex challenges facing reefs in light of climate change. This project will use the opportunities posed by an upcoming highway relocation project in Olowalu Valley, Maui, to study ahupuaʻa (watershed)- scale landscape architecture prioritizing the health of the ecologically critical Olowalu Reef. Typical sites at different distances from the reef with varying pollutant sources will be studied and designed for ecological performance particularly for improving reef health. This project also intends to communicate the opportunities to simultaneously enhance recreational, programmatic, and educational opportunities relating to the reef. From this study, a principle based guide for landscape architecture reef health practices, labeled as a ʻtoolkit,’ will derive generalized techniques and principles which could be implemented within elevations of other watershed sites with differing conditions.
What’s so important about reefs?
Coral reefs are home to 25 percent of all marine life, yet they are only found on 1% of the ocean floor (United Nations, 2021). These diverse yet fragile ecosystems protect shorelines from storms, supply cures to diseases, provide revenue in fishing and tourism, and enable biocultural practices by indigenous groups worldwide. More than 1 billion people globally directly benefit from the presence of coral reefs .
On the community level here in Hawaiʻi, undoubtedly koʻa— or corals— have a significant place in Hawaiian cultural lineage and modern biocultural practices. In the Kumulipo, as described by Lilikalā Kameʻeleiwa is the first organism born in the Hawaiian universe after night and day. Today, corals are important in a significant number of cultural practices,
including spearfishing and harvest limu. Corals are considered life’s beginning and an akua, or deity, to Kānaka Maoli (Gregg et al., 2016). Protecting coral reefs also involve protecting a significant part of Hawaiian heritage, identity, and cultural abundance. Coral reefs are also significant for tourism in Hawaiʻi, which plays a significant role both in the state’s economy, but also has direct impacts on reef decline (Gregg et al., 2016). The significance of reefs to many various aspects of life in Hawaiʻi cannot be overstated.
Hanau ka po
the night gave birth
Hanau Kumulipo i ka po, he kane
Kumulipo [Source of darkness] was born in the night, a male
Hanau Po‘ele i ka po, he wahine
Po‘ele [Dark night] was born in the night, a female
Hanau ka ‘Ukuko‘ako‘a, hanau kana, he ‘Ako‘ako‘a, puka
born was the ‘Ukuko‘ako‘a [coral polyp], that one gave birth to the ‘Ako‘ako‘a [coral head], emerging
- exerpt from the Kumulipo, A Cosmogonic Guide to Decolonization and Indigenization, by Lilikalā Kame‘eleihiwa
Arizona State University’s imaging plane used for high-resolution coral reef mapping across Hawai‘i. This project helps understand changes in coral cover across the state.
Reef Conservation in Hawai‘i
Consequently, reef conservation and protection is an important value in Hawaiʻi, and there are many pursuing conservation efforts through restoration, science and technology. Throughout the archipelago, researchers are looking for ways to protect vulnerable coral species from rising temperature and acidity levels— breeding for resilient coral species, accelerating reef growth, transplanting and outplanting juvenile coral, mapping coral reef coverage— there are a huge variety of ways scientists are pushing the boundaries of their fields in order to protect this fragile ecosystem (Reinhart). Hawaiʻi is one of the main places in the United States come in order to do this kind of work, even establishing research centers with highly complex, expensive equipment to monitor and maintain coral reefs. Restoration efforts to protect coral reefs understandably most often involve marine biologists and ocean related restoration practices.
Scientists also contribute their recommendations for reef health through scientific studies and papers. There is significant research on land and sea connection and its relationship to reef health (Gove et al., 2023). Scientists are advocating for intentional runoff treatment, reduced sediment input, and managed fishing as tangible ways to improve reef health. Coral studies, even at our own Hawaiʻi Institute of Marine Biology are investigating global risk factors to reef health, like thermal and pH tolerance, in addition to studying local coral hot spots and their responses to localized events over time (Downs et al., 2022). Though sometimes specialized in scope, these studiesʻ results can be translated into design parameters to derive scientifically based landscape intervention strategies.
Landscape Architecture in Hawai‘i
In the field of landscape architecture, there is opportunity for further engagement with the topics of reefs and ocean health in the work done on the land. In Hawaiʻi alone, there have been projects with the Coral Reef Alliance (furthermore known as CORAL) to promote Best Management Practices (BMPs) and/ or Nature Based Solutions (NBS) to encourage stormwater practices that promote reef health (Roth Venue et al., 2014). There are courses offered at UH School of Architecture related to implementing these best practices which offer a variety of solutions, including to the reefs (Lander, 2022). Yet the general types of projects being funded and implemented in Hawaiʻi are private residences, resorts, and government projects without an emphasis on innovative stormwater capture and treatment.
Mitigating stormwater runoff is not new. Landscape architects are responsible for thinking about water flowing throughout and beyond their site. There continues to be innovation on tools used for capturing, filtering, and slowing water flow in urban areas. This is important for good site design, and policies incentivize on-site stormwater management (Fabricius, 2005).
However, climate change is intensifying and expanding the landscape architect’s responsibility: solutions must think holistically about how water and sediment flows down the entire watershed, and how we can design to protect and strengthen our vulnerable ocean habitats. Pioneering landscape architects have begun to connect watershed health and their work, namely Kate Orff and her firm SCAPE. Now iconic projects such as Living Breakwaters and Oystertecture demonstrate that landscape architects bring a crucial perspective to water filtration and sediment projects which were previously the realm solely of engineers. The shifting priorities towards nature based solutions and traditional
A photo from Hawai‘i Home Magazine’s articel on April 6, 2024, highlighting the necessity of landscape architects to “create ideal outdoor spaces.” The article does not describe anything about stormwater infrastructure. Photo by Aaron K. Yoshino https://www.hawaiihomemag.com/landscape-architects-create-the-perfect-outdoor-space/
ecological knowledge is expanding landscape architecture as a field which listens to and collaboratively designs for people, ecology, and resilience. But there needs more of this thinking, particularly in places with vulnerable coral reefs like Hawaiʻi.
While this may be new for landscape architecture, kānaka maoli have been designing for abundance of Hawaiʻi’s land and water for centuries. Hawaiian ingenuity in stewardship and design of upland forests, loʻi, auwai, loko iʻa, others shaped not only land and water, but intrinsically linked to cultural and spiritual identity of Hawaiʻi. Sources such as The Ethnobiology of Coral Reefs describe how stewardship of reefs connected to material and spiritual abundance, in Hawaiʻi and elsewhere (Gregg et al., 2016). Traditional ecological knowledge is inextricably linked to the people who hold and practice the wisdom, and much of that knowledge is formed by relationships with local practitioners.
Landscape architects have many of the tools at their disposal to address polluted stormwater runoff, but often the missing link is educating and convincing clients of the need to invest in these design features. At least in Hawaiʻi, upon personal observation, there seems to be a disconnect between how people operate at home— spraying fertilizers, dripping oil, and letting excess rainwater run down the drain—and how these same people value our coral reefs and the environment. As a field, landscape architecture in Hawaiʻi is still primarily focused on the effects within the land, and not the relationship to the water.
Landscape Architecture and Reef Health in Hawai‘i
Coral reef threats due to climate change is a serious problem in need of interdisciplinary actions spanning both land and water. Ocean scientists are talking about being plastic free and their restoration efforts, but not talking nearly enough about land based pollutants and how the polluted runoff will severely hinder any effort to restore the reefs below the water. Landscape architects are talking about rain barrels and stormwater runoff, without talking enough to clients about the importance of the the relationship of water coming off their property to the coral reef at the end of the stormwater drain. There are opportunities for ocean scientists and conservationists’ work to be linked to landscape architects’ and planners’ work to enable understanding of the interconnectedness of coral reefs throughout the entire ahupuaʻa, or watershed.
Rendering from SCAPE’s Living Breakwaters project, originally from their 2014 Rebuild by Design competition submission. She has been a strong influence within landscape architecture to create designs that interact closely with the water.
From the perspective of landscape architecture, in order to make this possible, there needs to be more tools and data in order to educate clients about the relationship between stormwater and coral reef health. Although the resources are out there, polluted runoff is a relatively uninteresting and unsexy topic, considered a nuisance perhaps enforced by policy. Incentivized and evidence-based investigation into how polluted runoff
affects reef health, such as the work currently being done by CORAL in West Maui, could perhaps bring clients to go above and beyond for stormwater and consequently the reef. Furthermore, work like this capstone can bring graphics and storytelling to help people connect the importance between their property’s landscape and the greater ocean ecosystems. A collage speaking to the connection between stormwater and polluted runoff coming from our homes, our communities, and our deforested landscape, to the treasured reef environments that we cherish.
Pushing the Field Forward
As landscape architects, we have opportunity to influence local, watershed-specific risks affecting reef health. Although bioswales and phytoremediation will not influence global stressors such as warmer ocean temperatures and increased acidification, there are tangible opportunities to influence risks such as sediment input, urban runoff, waste water pollutants, wave action, and sea level rise adaptation (Gove et al., 2023). Similar to other coastal locations, Hawaiʻi reefs are at high risk from these local stressors. There are many cultural practitioners, NGOs, scientists, policy makers acting locally to protect reef health. In addition to these critical roles, landscape architects are in a unique position to gather and apply knowledge from normally isolated streams of expertise into tangible mauka-makai designs spanning from upper forested regions to coastal shorelines. Principles tested in Hawaiʻi ahupuaʻa could then be applied and adapted to watersheds elsewhere.
This project will think explore how to increase reef health from the perspective of landscape architecture. I posit that we will have to be inventive and further innovative by integrating wisdom from traditional indigenous knowledge (TEK), western science, and design to further expand our toolkit for increasing watershed health. Hawaiians recognized the connection between land and water and their interlinked health outcomes. Conservationists, Kānaka Maoli biocultural organizations, and scientists all recognize this link between forest and landscape health and ocean health (Winter et al., 2020). Landscape architects, as professionals who design for and manipulate the landscape, have an important kuleana to accompany these efforts. By using design thinking, holistic approaches, and visual storytelling, landscape architects can aid in visualizing and mitigating the runoff problem in context of a compelling and vulnerable client: the coral reef.
In this brief academic capstone, I attempt to begin this storytelling and linkage using various ahupuaʻa elevations in Olowalu, Maui, as a test site to design for polluted runoff mitigation and consequently, coral reef health. Landscape architects can serve as linkages, crediting ideas from indigenous, scientific, and design wisdom to create placebased, comprehensive toolkits used in design for the reef. Compiling and illustrating these tools in one place aims to inspire holistic, ahupuaʻa-wide design thinking that is principlebased and possible to translate to other places and cultures.
One of the most powerful things we as landscape architects can do today is prevent polluted stormwater runoff from flushing into the ocean and educate folks about the connection of runoff and reef health. By connecting cultural meaning, personal action, and scientific data, landscape architects can help teach and inspire those of us working on land to support the important conservations of our oceans.
Dr. Sarah Severino of Coral Reef Alliance testing for a panel water quality metrics at known stream measurement sites along Olowalu Stream. This data will measure the efficacy of stream revegetation efforts to improve water quality over time. Photo by author.
Research Questions
Within this capstone project, I will ask:
What are threats to coral reefs in which landscape architecture can be involved?
What are the pollutants affecting the reef?
Where are those pollutants coming from?
What are tools landscape architects can use to improve reef health?
How can these tools be applied within diverse site conditions and proximity to the reef?
What generalized principles can we derive from a Hawaiʻi specific toolkit?
How can landscape architects design in a way that positively impacts the people, the watershed, and the reef?
Capstone Thesis
Landscape architects can think holistically by drawing wisdom from design, scientific, and indigenous knowledge systems to design for critical habitats in ahupua‘a (watersheds), such as coral reefs.
Methodology: Approach to research
This project wove its way from mauka to makai, mountain to ocean, understanding reef threats and their solutions flowing through the ahupuaʻa towards the reef. Typical reef threats and their sources were catalogued and located across the ahupuaʻa. Alongside the generalized pollutant categories, and zooming into the test area, Olowlau Valley was analyzed for its site-specific landscape conditions in relation to the reef.
Using these risk factors as guidelines, literature reviews of relevant journals and publications were analyzed alongside precedent studies as key resources to learn lessons from past projects in similar conditions. Precedents and research journals spanned from toxipathological effects of UV sunscreen to biocultural restoration of fishponds, to configuring dirt roads
Methodological Approach
Dr. Sarah Severino of CORAL and Ms. Teje Rojas of Kipuka Olowalu cooperating to gather stream water height data for Olowalu Stream. Their work here will potentially aid in receiving grant funding for future conservation projects with Kipuka Olowalu. Photo by author.
to prevent sediment runoff. This began to reveal potential ʻtools’ and their underlying principles for use in the reef health toolkit. Surveying a diverse array of resources aimed to include a range of strategies to protect coral reef health, not focusing on the expertise from any one field. Community leaders were approached and interviewed to further understand the active work occurring for reef health. Two site visits were conducted, one in February and one in April, to document the site and connect with community members. After information was gathered about the various elevation sites within the ahupuaʻa, the research moved into conceptual design. Lastly, from testing designs on these typical sites, along with the information gained from literature reviews, a generalized, principle-based toolkit for landscape architects designing for reef health will be designed, highlighting examples from the Olowalu Valley project as conceptual examples. The project methodologies
are similar yet different in comparison to the research proposal outlined initially in January— namely, pursuing design in more detail. Research at times was overwhelming to integrate between many types of data sources, and it was challenging to gain information about the site at times when community resources were stalling. Nevertheless, the project finished with similar methodologies to the initial approach!
Methodology: Approach to community connections
Additionally, community liaisons were consulted from The Nature Conservancy, West Maui Ridge to Reef, Coral Reef Alliance and Kipuka Olowalu to better understand the active projects happening in Olowalu ahupuaʻa to address reef health. It was valuable to learn from marine biologists who were approaching ocean health from a mauka design perspective in this area in order to protect the reef, and further reinforced my thesis question that these type of land based reef interventions are urgently needed. The approach to community outreach was slow and deliberate, focusing on first meeting current advisor’s connections and being introduced gradually to active community members through trust and referrals. Meanwhile, throughout the site analysis process, there were identified potential site opportunities in Kipuka Olowalu due to its proximity to an overgrown riparian corridor and the group’s sediment-trapping loʻi. However, instead of jumping ahead of introductions to reach out to Kipuka Olowalu, the community connections developed at the appropriate pace with introductions and opportunities for stream monitoring observation. This allowed for a very fruitful time volunteering together and talking story about
Photo of Olowalu and Ukumehame Valleys, February 2024. Note the fine sediment and potential for turbid water. Photo by author.
together and talking story about what Kipuka Olowalu might need from a potential site design.
The author gives significant credit to taking the course entitled “Pono Science” congruently with this capstone project as a source of wisdom and perspective on how to approach community relationships, particularly within a semester-long project, with high sensitivity, reciprocal action, and gratitude. The course, instructed by Kumu Noe, gave opportunity to read and reflect about Hawaiian principles related to indigenous
research methodologies, indigenous science, and allyship as visiting researchers in a Kānka Maoli space. The author is significantly grateful for Kumu’s advice and willingness to create a safe space to explore these challenging topics. The course experience directly influenced the methodology for connecting with community members during the capstone process.
In West Maui, water pollution has led to a decline of coral cover from 30 percent to just 10 percent in the last fifteen years.
(Sparks et al., 2015; Stock et al., 2016) (Coral Reef Alliance Reef Sediment Dirt Roads)
Pollutant and Reef Matrix
Although not all pollutants affecting reef health are understood, there is significant evidence that various categories pollutants harm the reef in specific ways. Interestingly, inputs we may not consider as a “pollutant,” such as excess freshwater, changes the salinity of the system and thus diminishes coral reefs’ resiliency to external threats.
Reef Threats and Opporunities
Around the tropical regions of the globe, coral ecosystems are threatened by risks on local and global scales. On the global level, sea surface temperatures are steadily rising by 0.14 degree F per year (EPA, 2023), with the current temperatures being highest recorded in human history. As of April 15, 2024, NOAA has confirmed the fourth global coral bleaching event, where wide scale increases in temperatures have stressed coral symbionts to the extent that they have abandoned coral structures, causing bleaching (NOAA, 2015). In the 2019 IPCC Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate, coral reefs were determined as the marine ecosystem at the highest risk from climate change impacts (UNEP, 2021).
Goals for Designing for the Reef
Conserve fragile ecosystems, on land and in water
Engage the community with the ahupua‘a and wai Create wonderful public outdoor spaces
1. Minimize Runo Volume
2. Clean Runo as Much as Possible
Zooming in to Maui, the U.S. Coral Reef Task Force stated in 2000 that 20% of reefs should be protected by 2010. The goal was increased to 30% of coastal habitats protected by 2030. Yet as of USGS’ The Major Coral Reefs of Maui Nui, Hawai‘i report in 2019, less than 1 percent of coral reefs have been protected in Hawaiʻi thus far (Minton et al., 2020).
These statistics are all of incredibly significant concern. However, they remain relatively impossible to act upon until specific threats to the coral reefs are identified. In Hawaiʻi, “landmark papers by Rogers (1990), Jackson and others (2001), Fabricius (2005), and Risk (2014), make clear the connection between both overfishing and sediment runoff and the corresponding decline in reef health (Minton et al., 2020). As researchers understand changes to corals overtime, more specific reef threats and trends are uncovered. Sediment runoff and overfishing pose as significantly more localized and actionable threats for the community in Hawaiʻi to address with the specific cultural and geological context.
Global and Local Reef Threats
Global and local threats are simultaneously putting pressure on coral reef systems. Amidst the many potential threats, landscape architects can directly impart agricultural runoff, urban runoff, roadway/ vehicle pollutants, and construction pollutants.
Below: Pollutant sources in Hawaiʻi can be generally categorized by elevation within the ahupuaʻa. Landscape-based pollutants tend to be more mauka, with urban pollutants more makai. All will eventually flow to the reef.
Ahupuaʻa in Hawaiʻi
In the short, steep ahupuaʻa of Hawaiʻi Nei, effects of runoff, sediment input, and pollution are further intensified. Channelized streams flow abruptly to the ocean. Rainwater carries pollutants, sediment, and debris onto the nearshore habitats of Hawaiʻi, which consist largely of coral reefs (Reinhart). Due to its dramatic geography, it is essential to clean and infiltrate water close to the source. Although reefs have been in steady decline in recent decades, there remains to be significant hope that action now will greatly improve the resiliency of Hawaiʻi’s reefs. The short ahupuaʻa also mean that there is less time and area for polluted runoff to infiltrate downward towards the aquifer. All of these factors reinforce Hawaiʻi as an important study site for reef related conservation in this locale of geographical extremes.
Wao Kānaka
Kula
Kahakai
Moana
Opposite: coral reefs are complex ecological communities. For the purposes of understanding landbased pollution and reef health, there is a delicate balance of corals, herbivores, and algaes. Excess polluted inputs upset this balance and cause coral stress and death.
Pollutants and the Ahupuaʻa
To connect these pollutants to their typical sources in Hawaiʻi means we can also generally categorize their location in the ahupuaʻa by elevation and distance from the reef. Mountainous hillsides, or Wao Kanaka, suffering from ungulate trampling and invasive plant encroachment will produce different reef pollutants (i.e. sediment particulate, animal waste and pathogens, and leaf litter) than Kula, or plains, where historic human settlement now manifests as concrete driveways, leaking cars, and agricultural fertilizer treatments. Closer to the shoreline, in addition to the urban anthropogenic runoff sources, many heavily used roadways exist at the shoreline without pollutant mitigation. At this point just before the ocean, runoff can be so polluted that in flash rain events, large brown water events can cause serious destruction to the reef.
Land Based Opportunities for Action
Recent research shows that when communities are indeed able to diminish these land-based pollutant sources, there is tangible evidence for increased resilience in those coral reefs. Healthier reefs showed “modest reduction in coral mortality following severe heat stress compared to reefs with reduced fish populations and enhanced land-based impacts.” (Gove et al., 2023). These reefs were also able to bounce back more easily: “simultaneously reducing land–sea human impacts results in a three- to sixfold greater probability of a reef having high reef-builder cover four years post-disturbance.” In short, decreasing land based pollution reduces coral death and helps them bounce back after stress. The elimination of land-based stressors allows for a direct way in which landscape architects can be involved in reef conservation. The need for this land and sea connection will only strengthen with additional scientific research and returning to indigenous ways of knowing. Landscape architects can be part of these solutions by including increased sediment mitigation in their designs and educating clients of their kuleana within ahupuaʻ a.
Exploring Site
Ahupua‘a as site and subject
Reef Conditions in Hawai‘i
Reefs in Hawaiʻi are seriously threatened due to climate change. From bleaching and rising temperatures in the water to brown water events after fire decimates hillsides (NOAA, 2015), the threats facing reefs sometimes seem too overwhelming to face. Globally, By the 2030s, most coral reefs are projected to experience coral bleaching at least twice per decade, and possibly every year by the 2040s. This frequency would prevent coral recovery between episodes. Without drastic change, coral reefs could disappear by 2100 (Burke et al., 2021). These harrowing statistics will require large concerted efforts to reverse to maintain coral reefs on our planet.
Conditions of the Honoapiʻilani Highway Project
This capstone project intends to use the upcoming Hawaiʻi Department of Transportation (HDOT) highway relocation project as an opportunity to test reef health design interventions in an academic setting. Oloawalu is a community extending from Puʻu Kukui Mountain range to the coastline on the west side of Maui Island. This community is bordered by Launiupoko to the north, and Ukumehame to the south. The Honoapiʻilani Highway is the most accessible connection from Kahului, the primary urban center of Maui, to these west Maui communities. The overarching 6 mile highway project planned by the HDOT is prompted by significant flooding along a six mile stretch of this highway due to sea level rise. Meanwhile, HDOT, the Nature Conservancy (TNC), The University of Hawaiʻi Community Design Center (UHCDC) and other stakeholders have recognized the coral reef at Olowalu as worthy of intentional protection, the land vacated after the highway is removed is designated for habitat restoration, open space parkland, and/or other nature based solutions intended to maintain a healthy reef.
In the context of this upcoming project, this semester long capstone project will focus on Olowalu Valley, within the extent of the six mile HDOT project perimeter. Looking from ridge to reef, this project will not only look at the newly available land parcel, with the highway vacated, but also speculate design opportunities within the context of Olowalu Stream, Olowalu Valley, and the the shoreline below. Smaller, typical test sites within the valley will be used to understand how Hawaiian biocultural knowledge, design and conservation science can be drawn upon together to maximize reef health, support the Olowalu Valley community, and celebrate place-based recreational opportunities.
The Ecological Importance of Olowalu
The large, 600 year old reef at Olowalu is Hawaiʻi’s first “Mission Blue Hope Spot,” recognized for its role as a “Mother Reef,” spawning coral that fertilizes reefs on Molokaʻi, Lanaʻi, and Kahoʻolawe. This ecologically important and relatively healthy reef has been well studied and hosts various scientific restoration efforts. Overall, Olowalu reef tract is the largest intact coastal fringing reef on Maui” (Minton et al., 2020, p. 173). The tract hosted the 22 different species of coral, the most coral diversity seen on West Maui at the time of study (Minton et al., 2020, p. 184).
The area can be subdivided into two general areas: north and south of Olowalu Landing, which is the boat ramp at the public Olowalu Beach Park. There are differences in wind, current, coral cover, and herbivore fish species between the two areas (Minton et al., 2020). In general, the area north of Olowalu has a sandier seafloor, limiting the ability for coral growth. This area around Olowalu Point has higher fishing rates and sediment input, with the proximity of Olowalu Stream’s mouth into the ocean. Consequently, this area has higher macroalgae cover overcrowding potential coral (Minton et al., 2020, p. 169). Interestingly, despite these unfavorable statistics, the area still hosts a large amount of prime spawner fish, important for general reef health on West Maui.
In contrast, south of Olowalu Landing has an extended rock shelf, hosting a wide variety of corals in an area extending far off the coast. In praise of this area’s abundance, the West Maui Coral Reef Atlas describes Olowalu this way:
“The Olowalu reef tract stood in contrast to other southern reefs and was in many ways one of the gems of the WMR [West Maui Region]. It possessed an abundant and diverse
Sylvia Earle declared Olowalu as Hawai‘iʼs first Mission Blue Hope Spot, a critical marine location to protect and preserve.
Opposite: an orientation to the islands of Maui Nui, highlighting in particular the National Humpback Whale Marine Sanctuary and the reef spawning trajectories mapped by the team at USGS (The Major Coral Reefs of Maui Nui, Hawaiʻi)
coral assemblage and medium-high total fish and resource fish biomass without the benefit of additional fishery management. Olowalu has long been known to be a place treasured by its community and a top snorkeling and diving destination. The Olowalu FW showed signs of stress from climate change, landbased sources of pollution, and fishing, and in recent years has become the focus of community efforts to prevent additional sources of land-based pollution and strengthen marine management” (Minton et al., 2020, pp. 27-28).
There is both clear interest and ecological necessity to ensure this area has a decrease of land based sources of pollution. In addition to the opportunities initially presented with the HDOT highway relocation, Olowalu Valley is an important ecological asset in its own right.
Contextualizing Olowalu
Site: Landscape Elements
Site: Zoning Elements
Site Opportunities
As shown in previous sections, designing for reef health can take a variety of forms of innovative landscape architecture. To best use Olowalu Valley as an effective “test site” for understanding a reef-forward design, sites were chosen based on differing characteristics such as development level, impervious surfaces, tree cover, and proximity to the reef. Thus in culmination these sites would allow a fuller picture of the ahupua‘a and the challenges of protecting the reef in each type of site.
Site Selection Logic
Precedents
Learning from those before us
For this project, it was aimed to investigate wisdom from diverse streams of knowledge so that reef health could be better understood from multiple perspectives. For example, Kānaka Maoli have been thinking about reef health for millennia in how they cultivated their ahupua‘a. Certain plants and limu, mauka and makai elements, were connected by planting and harvesting cycles, and their flourishing was measured together.
Western science also has plentiful concern and consequently research about coral reef health. There are numerous institutions around the United States and the globe who are actively working on solutions to protect and restore this fragile ecosystem. Though the connection between land and sea restoration is relatively recent, there is already research on many pollutants’ effects on the reef.
Ecomimicry in Indigenous Management Systems to Achieve Resource Abundance, with Examples from Hawai‘i Kawika B. Winter, et al. Ecology and Society, 2020
Stream Restoration Technical Solutions
West Maui Wahikuli and Honokōwai Watersheds, West Maui
Coral Reef Alliance, 2017
Furthermore, conservation groups who work on forest and valley management also recognize the connection between what is flowing down from their areas towards the ocean. Besides critically important ungulate management work and high forest restoration, which is beyond the scope of this project, but no less important, conservation groups such as West Maui Ridge to Reef and Coral Reef Alliance are installing terraced planting with the main intention of slowing and capturing sediment before it heads down to the reef.
All in all, there are many folks out there actively working on reef protection in the landscape. My question as I was researching was: why aren’t more landscape architects framing their green infrastructure work in this way? Using “Nature Based Solutions” and “Green Infrastructure” inherently serve the reef. The distinction I observed from most landscape architecture projects was the lack of naming and identifying for the public that this project was protecting reefs. Furthermore, the predominant landscape architecture firms in the West are still operating in temperate climates and do not think worry about coral reefs as the direct recipient of their runoff.
Consequently, in both anecdotal evidence and published projects, I believe there is a need for additional landscape work related to reef health, even if using the same nature based solutions but framing it in a way that the public and clients understand these solutions are also for the ocean and the reef. A notable project inspiring my work here, but not drawn, is Public Sediment by SCAPE’s team. It looks at Alameda in the San francisco Bay Area and follows sediment down the watershed towards the important marshland bay ecosystem.
Opposite: Two extremely valuable publications documenting Native Hawaiian and Western Conservationo strategies towards controlling water and sediment in Hawai‘i. These two schools of thought had many crossovers and were critical in my understanding of designing for reef health.
Kuaiwi, Lithic Berms: Habitat Augmentation
Stream Management: Habitat Enhancement
California grass soaks up excess water without providing much soil stabilization.
‘
Takeaways
These precedents and the slew of journal articles, guideline manuals, and atlases I came upon while researching for this project helped me understand the complexity and depth of a problem like reef health. In short, landscape architecture is not the magic antidote for the crisis of our dwindling coral reefs. However, there are significant contributions this field can make towards land-based sollutions in three things that “green infrastructure” does well: trapping, cleaning, and infiltrating runoff.
One significant takeaway is that there are many ways to capture and treat runoff, so choose the tools that are the most placebased for your project. For example, if working somewhere that traditionally grows terraced rice fields, maybe that is the best runoff control strategy for that place! Here in Hawai‘ i, we are blessed with a heritage of very capable landscape architects/ engineers flourishing here before western contact. Their continuity of indigenous knowledge of a place demonstrates the efficacy of their systems, tested over time.
A key consideration when drawing from precedents and creating ‘toolkits’ like this one is the risk of appropriating and simplifying complex cultural and ecological systems into a little drawing. My hope with this project is to “code in” to these tools, while crediting their sources and pointing to the need to investigate them in depth before implementing in any project. Let the toolkit serve as a simplified tool to understand some of the strategies at a glance.
Test Site Design
Exploring Application
How can the information presented and the valuable sources of how to protect the reef from land based pollution be applied to sites in Hawai‘ i? How can we begin to bridge the gap between Best Management Practices in the landscape, and the emotional kuleana of being a steward of the reef, no matter what ‘āina is yours to steward? In this section, these questions begin to be explored. This project was only able to have scope of diagrammatic/conceptual design opportunities for the large land tracts. However, this is how all design needs to begin. When understanding which reef-friendly design tools align with a site’s topography, programming, and climate, one can not only design for the reef, but educate others on how design for the ocean does not necessarily have to happen directly within the ocean. Within these designs, the intention was to provide many programmatic benefits to the space users in addition to the hypothetical design client, the ko‘a.
Test Sites
The three test sites may not be evenly spaced within Olowalu Valley, but as you can see by their different relationships to the reef, the highway, and the stream, they represent an interesting array of design opportunities.
The riparian corridor at Kipuka Olowalu is in need of some care, suffers from severe erosion during large rain events.
Olowalu town is designed around the car. As the highway moves, there is opportunity to clean pollutants in the area and prevent additional stormwater runoff to the reef.
Olowalu Beach Park is the “last stand” before runoff will hit the ko‘a. This site could use both recreational and nature based solution improvements.
1. Kipuka Olowalu: Riparian Corridor
2. Olowalu Town
3. Olowalu Beach Park
Kipuka Olowalu Riparian Corridor
Existing Conditions
The most mauka of the three chosen sites, Kipuka Olowalu’s riparian corridor and nearby plain are not the main areas in which they currently have kuleana. Just to the west of this section, their organization cultivates a flourishing mala and lo‘ i kalo. They host school groups every week.
Currently, the stream is difficult to access, overgrown, and does not feel a part of the wonderful work they are doing in the main property area.
Kipuka Olowalu hopes to host interns at a campsite on the far side (here, the right) of the stream after clearing invasive grasses and controlling for erosion.
Kipuka Olowalu Riparian Corridor
Existing Conditions
Kipuka Olowalu Riparian Corridor
Existing Conditions
Kipuka Olowalu Riparian Corridor
Design Proposal
In this proposal, several different principles from Dr. Kawika B. Winter et al Ecomimicry paper are implemented to control erosion, clear stream vegetation, and control erosion. A looser version of the mala, or tiered Hawaiian food forest, can be used to extend the productivity of the property. This will liekly be phased in over time with ground covers to remediate soil, with additional food plants like ‘ ulu, mai‘a, ‘ uala, kukui, and others grown over time. In the right side of this section, the area can be cleared and a raised campground platform can be constructed from the removed riparian vegetation lumber. Vetiver half moons and native plants will stabilize steeper slope on the right side.
Kipuka Olowalu Riparian Corridor
Design Proposal: Sediment + Hydrology
Olowalu Town
Existing Condition
Olowalu town is a beautiful, wondeful gem of a west side small town. Drive too fast towards Lahaina, and you’ll miss the wonderful small businesses under the shaded tunnel of monkeypod trees. However, there are significant opportunities in this area to design for the coral reef and an improved human experience all along the extent of Olowalu town. Large concrete surfaces dominate the area that would be scorching hot if not for the monkeypods. But as those trees age, and Honoapi‘ ilani Highway is relocated from the area, there are opportunities to trap polluted runoff while bringing additional outdoor spaces to celebrate the beautiful Olowalu community.
Olowalu Town
Existing Condition
Olowalu Town
Design Opportunities
Olowalu Town
Design Proposal
In this design, the coral reef can and should be celebrated with signage and planting choices. To do this, plant colors and tectonics can evoke those seen in the reef. Functionally, continuity of planting down the small lane crossing the previous highway will indicate ocean access. A large painted crosswalk aids pedestrian access between the beach and Olowalu town. Rain and phytoremediation gardens are dispersed throughout the site, strategically capturing runoff from the buildings and remaining asphalt areas. The highway can be imagined as predominantly a multimodal bike pathway, for people to walk, bike, and ride horses. One narrow vehicular lane will remain in each direction.
Olowalu Town
Design Proposal- Hydrological Performance
Phone Booth -->
New Olowalu Bus Stop
Multimodal Bike Path
Coral Education Station Trapping and remediating pollutants
Coral Friendly Garden
Making green transit more fun and easy
Educating people on where they are in ahupua‘ a
Bike Parking
Activated Turf Space
Capturing heavy metals from building
Native Plant Rain Gardens
Olowalu Beach Park
Existing Condition
Olowalu Beach Park has the potential to be a fantastic and well used beach park, but currently hosts an interesting combination of neglect and history.
Olowalu Sugar Mill processed sugar cane grown above in the valley, ready to be loaded onto ships and taken to larger plants. When it was no longer lucrative to grow sugar in Hawai‘ i, the then Pioneer Sugar Mill chose to unmount the entire mill and ship it to the Phillipines!
Many aspects of this beach park are curiously framed in this time. Due to the nontoxic nature of old style sugar cane processing, there should not be excess toxins in the soil here (though it should be tested!), giving potential opportunities to enhance and utilize the sugar mill ruins as park space with minimal phytoremediation. The loose dirt is spongy with either saltwater or rain capture, with the potential for sediment runoff during rain.
Olowalu Beach Park
Existing Condition
Olowalu Beach Park
Opportunities
Olowalu Beach Park
Design Proposal
A series of rain and phytoremediation gardens at different distances from the reef will help to mitigate any vehicular runoff and additional stormwater coming from higher in the valley. Special shower rain capture gardens use plants known for their ability to tolerate and absorb manmade chemicals and detergents. Remnant troughs in the mill ruins could be educational installations to teach people how the rain and phytoremediation gardens are performing. Finally, a small raised platform can serve as a gathering deck for small performances or events.
Olowalu Beach Park
Design Proposal
Olowalu Beach Park
Existing Section
This section helps us understand the relationship between the strong potential in this area of the site, the loulu garden leading towards the ocean, but the need to further create habitat and mitigate runoff very close to both the source and the potential sink.
Please unfold me!
Olowalu Beach Park
Designed Section
By creating changes in the topography, dune spaces, and various phytoremediation and rain gardens, runoff can be trapped and treated so that very little enters the nearby ocean and affects the reef.
Please unfold me!
Next Steps
Reflection + Conclusion
This project is by no means comprehensive, but I hope it got your wheels turning on how to think about the ocean in landscape architecture. Humans (especially western humans!) love to compartmentalize phenomena and the natural world into categories, subjects, and departments. This has its benefits, but also its significant flaws. But if we are to use these divisions, I as a landscape architect am a scientist, a community advocate, an artist, a storyteller, a mediator, a naturalist, as well as a designer, to just name a few. Kānaka Maoli, to my knowledge, did not make these delineations, but understood the fluid and holistic nature of mālama ‘āina. Can we as landscape architects sit at the feet of these knowledge holders and break our own siloes?
Opposite: a photo taken at Moku o Lo‘e Field School, Fall 2023. Thisphoto, looking to the top of the Ko‘olau Mountains, Oʻahu, to the ocean in Kaneohe Bay, demonstrate the need to think holistically on all islands for reef protection mauka to makai.
The script is asking to be rewritten. Streams once flowed gracefully to the ocean, and reefs flourished with the mutual benefit to the people who stewarded them. Can we imagine a future which is not returning to the past, but recognizing wisdom from many traditions, including indigenous traditions, to create a new kind of modern life with the health of our blue lung at the forefront?
A rewritten collage of the relationship between our homes, communities, storm drains, streams, and our oceans.
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Kiana was born in Seattle, Washington, and grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area swimming in frigid water, tidepooling on the rocky coast, and hiking in the redwoods. She credits these foundational experiences to her lifelong affinity for the natural world and for finding her place within it. She graduated from the University of California, San Diego, with a degree in Biochemistry and Cell Biology. Her lab experiences at the Burton Lab at Scripps Institution of Oceanography were among the top highlights at UCSD.
Kiana pursued a Master of Landscape Architecture at University of Hawai‘ i after searching for a profession which combined her love for sustainability with an ability to apply and connect to the land she is protecting. She came to Hawai‘ i to learn about Kānaka Maoli traditions of land management and principles of aloha ‘āina in addition to her university studies. She hopes to continue this learning in Hawai‘ i and wherever life takes her.
