Rediscovery and Discussion on Contemporary Implementation: A Self-Sufficiency Assessment in South Maui, Hawaii Utilizing Geographic Information Systems
Abstract
In contemporary times, land and resource management is inefficient and unsustainable, leading to global issues such as climate change. Though many solutions have been explored, these solutions neglect to explore ancient land management techniques, such as those in the Hawaiian Islands in the form of the ahupua’a system. Projects at Kahikinui on Maui and King’s Landing on the Island of Hawai’i both demonstrate the ahupua’a system being integrated in the modern day and the characteristics of the lands that are being utilized. Despite this, the current body of knowledge lacks exact areas in South Maui, an area prone to drought, that should first use the ahupua’a system and effectively ‘test’ the benefits. To fill this gap, technology, in the form of geographic information systems, was used to identify the ahupua’a with the lowest self-sufficiency ratio (SSR), determined through the analysis of three unique resources. The study yielded results that identified the ahupua’a of Waiakoa as having the lowest SSR of 2.170870804%, while the ahupua’a of Kōheo 1-2 had the highest SSR of 254.09741%, therefore suggesting that further research and potentially implementation of the ahupua’a system occur in the region of contemporary South Maui that fits the boundaries of the Waiakoa ahupua’a.
Key Words: ahupuaʻA; self-sufficiency; GIS; South Maui; traditional land management; drought
Downloads
Published
Data Availability Statement
The research, which was submitted as part of an AP Research performance task, was only submitted to the College Board for AP grading. No additional journals or publications have access to such research.
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2026 Intersect: The Stanford Journal of Science, Technology, and Society
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).
