West Maui Wave Run-up Forecast Validation

The Pacific Islands Ocean Observing System (PacIOOS), University of Hawaii School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology Department of Oceanography, and Hawaii Sea Grant are developing a high-resolution, real-time wave run-up forecast and notification system for West Maui's coastline. In order to validate the site-specific, short-term forecasts and to determine meaningful thresholds associated with each forecast domain, citizen scientists contribute crowd-sourced photographs by documenting the shoreline of West Maui during predicted wave run-up events. Photos, observations, date, time, location, and other metadata are submitted online in this free, publicy-accessible dataset.

Site-specific, short- and long-term forecasts, will strengthen West Maui's coastal community and economy by enhancing preparedness and response operations, and by informing future land use planning. A combination of high water levels and large wave swells can result in significant coastal erosion, damage to infrastructure and properties, and land-based sedimentation that impairs coastal water quality. The State of Hawaii has experienced an increase in wave plus tide-driven flooding in recent years, and these events are expected to grow in numbers and duration due to sea level rise and changing wave energies.

When sharing these photographs, please cite this project with the following attribution:

(c) PacIOOS, (year of photo). Some rights reserved. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).

Data and resources

GeoServer

This URL provides access to this dataset via GeoServer, which offers multiple output formats and an OpenLayers viewer.

HTML Open
West Maui Map Viewer

This URL provides a viewer and/or data access for this dataset.

HTML Open
West Maui Photo Entry Form

This URL provides a data submission tool for this dataset.

HTML Open
Unnamed resource

HTML Open
Research Organization Registry (ROR) Identifier

HTML Open
Unnamed resource

HTML Open
Research Organization Registry (ROR) Identifier

HTML Open
Unnamed resource

HTML Open
Research Organization Registry (ROR) Identifier

HTML Open
Unnamed resource

HTML Open
Research Organization Registry (ROR) Identifier

HTML Open
Unnamed resource

HTML Open
Research Organization Registry (ROR) Identifier

HTML Open
OGC-WFS

Open Geospatial Consortium Web Feature Service (WFS). Supported WFS versions include 1.0.0, 1.1.0, and 2.0.0. Supported output formats include CSV, GeoJSON,…

WFS Open
Unnamed resource

HTML Open
Research Organization Registry (ROR) Identifier

HTML Open
Unnamed resource

HTML Open
Research Organization Registry (ROR) Identifier

HTML Open
OGC-WMS

Open Geospatial Consortium Web Map Service (WMS). Supported WMS versions include 1.1.1 and 1.3.0. Supported map formats include AtomPub, GeoRSS, GeoTIFF, GIF,…

WMS Open

Additional information

Date (creation)	2019-05-07
Date (issued)	2019-05-07
Date (revision)	2019-05-07
Status	onGoing
Update frequency	asNeeded
Metadata language	en
License	The data may be used and redistributed for free but is not intended for legal use, since it may contain inaccuracies. Neither the data Contributor, University of Hawaii, PacIOOS, NOAA, State of Hawaii nor the United States Government, nor any of their employees or contractors, makes any warranty, express or implied, including warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose, or assumes any legal liability for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness, of this information.
Source metadata	ISO 19115 XML
Last updated	2026-11-04
Created	2026-11-04
API	package_show