As climate change reshapes weather patterns across the region, Pacific Islands like Palau are experiencing the impacts of rising temperatures, changing rainfall patterns, sea level rise, and more frequent extreme events. Climate services and products that are timely, accessible, and relevant are increasingly needed. Translating existing data and information into meaningful and practical tools provides a pathway for decision-makers to take action.

Over the past three years, researchers from the University of Hawaiʻi and the Pacific Research on Island Solutions for Adaptation (Pacific RISA), together with the Palau Office of Climate Change, Bureau of Budget and Planning, and Palau Weather Service Office, worked with Ngaraungiang Women Association (NWA), a women’s group of kukau (taro) farmers in Palau, to co-develop the Kukau Climate Early Warning Dashboard—a digital tool designed to support agricultural decision-making through accessible climate information. Developed through the UNEP CIS-Pac-5 project, the dashboard demonstrates how climate services can be tailored to meet the needs of a specific sector while building on local priorities and knowledge.

Why a Climate Early Warning Dashboard?

Kukau is much more than a staple crop in Palau. It is deeply intertwined with the country’s culture, history, and traditional land management systems. For generations, Palauan families have cultivated kukau in mesei—traditional taro patches that support food security while contributing to healthy watershed and coastal ecosystems. However, climate change is making cultivation increasingly difficult. Saltwater intrusion, changing rainfall patterns, drought, flooding, and increasing temperatures are altering conditions that farmers have relied on for generations. Many of the environmental cues that once guided planting and harvesting are becoming less predictable, creating a growing need for climate information that supports decision-making at the local level.

“A mesei a delal a telid” (a taro field is the mother of life) -Palauan Proverb (From Rehuher-Marugg and Tellei 2014). 

Rather than developing a generic climate dashboard, the project focused on understanding what specific information kukau farmers need to make decisions. Through multiple stakeholder workshops and discussions with kukau farmers, the project team worked to understand how farmers make decisions, what climate information they need, and how traditional knowledge could complement scientific observations and forecasts. Farmers identified the climate hazards most affecting their fields, described traditional planting cycles, and provided feedback throughout the design process.

This collaborative process resulted in a dashboard that combines climate observations, forecasts, seasonal outlooks, and local knowledge into a single, user-friendly platform designed specifically for kukau cultivation. This iterative, user-centered approach ensured the dashboard reflected the realities of farming in Palau, and specifically in the northern region of Babeldaob.

From Dashboards to Decisions

The Kukau Climate Early Warning Dashboard combines historical observations, current conditions, forecasts, and local knowledge into an accessible, mobile-friendly platform. Users can explore climate indicators relevant to kukau cultivation, view a traditional planting calendar, monitor conditions that may affect crop health, and access community resources and local observations.

The dashboard provides practical information that farmers can use throughout the growing season. Features include:

• A kukau corm burn warning
• A traditional planting calendar
• Current observations and climate forecasts across multiple timescales
• Key climate indicators
• Community bulletin boards and knowledge-sharing features
• Links to additional agricultural and climate resources

By translating complex climate information into practical guidance, the dashboard helps farmers better anticipate changing conditions and consider how weather and climate may influence planting, field management, and crop production.

Beyond Palau: Future Climate Services

The Kukau Climate Early Warning Dashboard demonstrates that successful climate services and products are co-developed iteratively with prospective users in mind through each step of the process. While the dashboard was developed specifically for kukau cultivation in Palau, the process behind it has much broader applications. The project reinforced several key lessons for developing effective climate services in Pacific Islands:

• Engage users early and throughout the design process.
• Build on existing national priorities and partnerships.
• Incorporate local knowledge alongside climate science.
• Plan for long-term sustainability from the outset.

As countries across the Pacific continue to strengthen climate resilience, developing decision-support tools that are locally relevant, trusted, and actionable will become increasingly important. The Kukau Climate Early Warning Dashboard offers one example of how collaborative climate service development can strengthen resilience while supporting local priorities and knowledge systems.

Explore the Kukau Climate Early Warning Dashboard at http://www.kukau.org/.