SUVA, Fiji, November 4 (IPS) – The Pacific Ocean connects thousands of islands, and understanding how ocean acidification is unfolding across the region requires more than individual research projects or monitoring stations.
Scientists need observations from different island environments, collected over time, to understand how seawater chemistry is changing and what those changes could mean for marine ecosystems and the communities that depend on them.
The work is being strengthened through regional collaboration, with Pacific scientists sharing data, technical knowledge and research experience to build a more complete picture of a changing ocean.
Dr Katy Soapi, Pacific Community (SPC) Coordinator for the Pacific Community Centre for Ocean Science and a Pacific scientist, says the broader scientific community is aware that ocean chemistry is changing. The priority is now building local evidence to understand how those changes may affect different island environments.
“What Pacific scientists are now doing is building the local evidence needed to understand how those changes may impact our different island environments,” Soapi said.
“At many of our monitoring sites, we are seeing considerable natural variability in pH over days, months and seasons, which is normal,” she said. “It is important to capture this data over time because coastal waters are influenced by temperature, rainfall, freshwater inputs, biological activity, land-based pollution and local oceanographic conditions.”
Monitoring programmes are at different stages across the region. Fiji has an established programme, with monitoring in the Suva area since 2023 and data that contribute to Sustainable Development Goal 14.3.1 reporting.
Samoa has received support through access to monitoring equipment, training and technical advice, while the Solomon Islands programme is newer, with scientists from Solomon Islands National University receiving regional and in-country training as they establish the technical capacity for long-term monitoring. Kiribati and Papua New Guinea also have their own monitoring histories and research priorities.
These differences matter when comparing observations across the Pacific.
“This variation is important; a harbour in Fiji, a lagoon in Kiribati, coastal waters in Samoa or reef environments in Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea can experience very different combinations of temperature, rainfall, freshwater input, current, biological activity and human pressure,” Soapi said.
“The Pacific is connected, but it is not environmentally uniform.
“This is why local monitoring is important and why we cannot rely solely on regional or global averages.”
Global Issues, 4 November 2026. Full article.
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