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This chapter assessed the drivers of land use/land cover change and describes observed transitions in Hawaiʻi (USA), using the island of Maui as a case study. Over the last half-century, Maui has experienced periods of intensive agriculture, rapid urban development, population migration, and environmental change. To better understand landscape-level change on Maui, this chapter compared the available land cover products and quantified the spatial transitions between them. Between 1976 and the early 2000s, all products showed that agricultural land cover declined significantly (losses of 46–63%), built-up area expanded (gains of 105–273%), and grassland and bare land cover also increased (gains of 113–196%, and 46–137%, respectively). These transitions reflected documented shifts in Maui land management and environmental change over the past 40 years, but poor Kappa scores (from 0.47 to 0.62) highlighted the spatial disagreement between the different classifications. Furthermore, when each classification was examined individually, only the NOAA Coastal Change Analysis Program (C-CAP) product adequately reflected the more recent changes of the last 10–20 years. Based on this assessment, the NOAA C-CAP product is the recommended existing tool for analyzing spatial change in Hawaiʻi. It was designed with ecosystems management and change detection in mind and is the only high-resolution, internally-consistent product that is updated at regular intervals. Newer high-resolution imagery and ancillary spatial data on the drivers of change will provide opportunities to refine existing products and generate more recent information for tracking land cover change in Hawaiʻi.

Novel methods for combining physical and social science research programs can integrate traditional research methods, stakeholder engagement, and environmental management. This chapter applies a participatory remote sensing approach to evaluate stakeholder perceptions of the presence of invasive plant species on Isabela Island, in the Galapagos Islands of Ecuador. An exercise on classification and change detection was carried out with agricultural landowners and employees of the Galapagos National Park Service, using photographs of different types of land cover commonly observed in the highland agricultural zone and surrounding National Park. Photos corresponded to GPS-validated locations within the spatial footprint of high-resolution satellite images from 2004 to 2010. Stakeholder classifications of remotely sensed imagery reveal competing accounts of the makeup of the land, with a high level of disagreement between the two (kappa = 0.39). An analysis of “shared” guava coverage and other introduced vegetation highlights key regions of agreement and divergence in land cover, land change, and land use—especially along the boundary between the farmland and the National Park. Change detection of landowner classifications showed a 19% decrease in guava within the National Park between 2004 and 2010, while the National Park Service employees perceived a 62% increase in the same region. Stakeholder perceptions of the Isabela highlands also differ qualitatively, where current environmental management initiatives focused on the consequences, rather than the causes, of species invasion. The results of this study provide compelling arguments for using participatory research methods as a tool to directly engage stakeholders in the research process and reconcile visions of productivity or degradation in shared spaces for conservation and economic activities.

This study investigates the community of Puerto Villamil, located on Isabela Island in the western portion of the Galapagos archipelago. Urban development and humanenvironment interactions are examined through a geographic information science perspective by (1) constructing a time-series of aerial photographs and satellite images, (2) mapping the current water and sewage infrastructure in the community using GPS and digitized analog maps, (3) assessment of the current urban setting within the context of community growth, with special reference to water quality measures at locations within and adjacent to the community, interviews and focus group discussions with health officials and local residents about water-borne disease and human health, and an analysis of the proximity of the community and its water and sewage infrastructure to the surrounding environment.

The climate science community of professionals in Hawai’i and the U.S.-Affiliated Pacific Islands is a vast interdisciplinary and international group, with the potential for spatial and sectoral barriers to communication and collaboration. This study sought to (1) assess the structural nature and expanse of climate-based communication between professionals across sectors in the Pacific Islands region; (2) identify key regional hubs and isolated groups both sectorally and spatially; and, (3) create a set of place-based tools that would increase and facilitate the connectedness of climate change resources (human, research, and adaptation). Social network analysis was chosen as a versatile method to assess the network and create free tools to facilitate future collaborations among stakeholders across spatial and disciplinary boundaries. Given the complexities of the large network, an innovative approach was used for data collection, blending a nominalist (researcher-created list of names) and realist (participant-created list in open fields) survey construction. Participants indicated frequency of communication to capture both active coworkers and periodic collaborators, consistent with the realities of the network. Survey participation was not confidential and was used to create region-wide and sub-regional maps that can be used by stakeholders to increase connectedness, in line with use-inspired science. Study results reveal a simultaneously diffuse and strongly connected network, with no isolated spatial or sectoral groups. The most central network members are those with a strong networking component to their professions. Gaps in communication were also revealed. Future research should evaluate the use and long term benefits of the created networking tools, and the specific nature of local and international communications within each sub-network.