Risk Management

As the Earth's climate changes, Pacific islands are especially vulnerable to sea-level rise, droughts, and extreme weather events. These changes threaten such resources as fresh water, public health and safety, and ecosystems. The NOAA Pacific Services Center (PSC) works collaboratively to improve the resilience and adaptive capabilities of ocean and coastal communities in preparing for and addressing the risks associated with climate change and variability.

In addition, the natural resource base on which livelihoods and quality of life in the islands depend are vulnerable to human-induced impacts, including hazardous materials releases, ship groundings, invasive species threats, and impacts related to coastal population growth, such as recreational overuse and land-based pollution. PSC supports activities that help Pacific coastal and ocean agencies, organizations, and communities plan for and respond to such impacts, as well as protect resources for future generations.

Objectives

• Facilitate local, state, territorial, and federal coordination of climate risk management.
• Support development of a Pacific regional ocean observing system association.
• Support the gathering, documentation, sharing, and utilization of traditional Pacific-region climate knowledge.
• Support hazard preparedness and response planning.
• Support the integration of natural resource considerations into federal and local policy and response planning for natural hazards and hazardous materials.
• Support efforts to identify, prioritize, clean up, and restore contaminated sites.
• Support the identification, prioritization, and removal of grounded and abandoned vessels, restoration of affected areas, and the development of local policy to address this issue.
• Support local agency efforts to improve management of areas identified as having important ecosystem functions.

Current Risk Management Projects

The following projects, linked to their project plans, are currently under way or planned for implementation in 2006—2007. Final implementation of the project plans is dependent upon availability of funding. Because of their crosscutting nature, some projects are listed under more than one focus area.

• Abandoned Vessel Project Support
• Contaminant Technical Support to the Pacific Islands
• Hazards Training and Technical Assistance
• Locally Applicable, Regionally Replicable Decision-Support Tools
• Natural Hazards Regional Partnerships and Integration
• Pacific Islands Geospatial Network
• Pacific Islands Mapping Activities Database
• Pacific Islands Spatial Training

Accomplishments to Date

Follow the link on any of the accomplishments for more details.

• Decision-Support Tools Development
• Environmental Sensitivity Mapping
• Hawai`i Contaminated Sites
• Natural Resource Damage Assessment Workshop
• Oil Spill Response Training
• Report on Natural Hazard Risk Management Project Opportunities in the Pacific Islands
• Roundtable of Federal Hazard Mitigation Partners in the Pacific Islands
• Support for Database of Contaminated Sites
• Support to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)
• Support to the U.S. National Weather Service
• Technical Assistance in Hazard Mitigation
• Vessel Grounding Workshop for the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands

Here are some links to Risk Management-Related Resources

Click here for Hazard-Related Events and Opportunities