ULTRA-Ex

Project Overview

ULTRA-Ex Hawai’i Island is a collaborative, interdisciplinary research project seeking to improve understanding of the patterns, processes, and implications of human-nature interactions in Hilo and Kailua-Kona, the two largest urban areas on Hawai'i Island. The two principal objectives of the project are:

  1. to analyze the material, water, and energy throughput of these two urban areas quantitatively over the past 150 years; and
  2. to analyze past, present, and potential human-induced landscape change in these areas geospatially

Our team consists of the Center for Industrial Ecology of the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies; The Kohala Center, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to science education, civic engagement, and the preservation of indigenous knowledge on Hawai‘i Island; and the Institute of Pacific Islands Forestry, a research program of the U.S. Forest Service located on Hawai‘i Island.

This research is supported by an Urban Long-Term Research Area Exploratory Award from the National Science Foundation for the period from August 2009 to July 2012.