Spatial-temporal impacts of climate change on coral reef recreation values in the main Hawaiian Islands

Coral reefs are highly diverse and productive ecosystems that provide a wide range of ecosystem services, including recreation, coastal protection, and marine biodiversity. Climate change impacts, including ocean warming and acidification, pose a significant threat to coral reefs and the ecosystem services they provide. The variability of these impacts highlight the need to develop more spatially explicit tools in coastal ecosystem management that integrate and assess potential ecological and socio-economic outcomes. To address this, we use a spatially explicit predictive ecological model to project changes in coral reef cover using downscaled data from Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs) climate scenarios. By coupling the projections to a recreational demand model we downscale impacts to 1 km squared grids and calculate net present value (NVP) across landscapes and islands. Our findings indicate cumulative NPV welfare losses by 2100 for Hawaiʻi residents range from $1.8 to $3.0 billion in 2024$. We examine per-capita loses and use EJScreen tool to assess variation in welfare impacts by identifying disadvantaged communities based on demographic and environmental indicators. The findings provide spatially explicit evidence linking projected ecological decline to distributed welfare losses, informing resource allocation and conservation prioritization across the Hawaiian Islands.