Heat waves are increasing in severity, duration, and frequency. The Multi-Scenario Extreme Weather Simulator (MEWS) models this using historical data, climate model outputs, and heat wave multipliers. In this study, MEWS is applied for planning of a community resilience hub in Hau’ula, Hawaii. The hub will have normal operations and resilience operations modes. Both these modes were modeled using EnergyPlus. The resilience operations mode includes cutting off air conditioning for many spaces to decrease power requirements during emergencies. Results were simulated for 300 future weather files generated by MEWS for 2020, 2040, 2060, and 2080. Shared socioeconomic pathways 2–4.5, 3–7.0 and 5–8.5 were used. The resilience operations mode results show two to six times increase of hours of exceedance beyond 32.2 °C from present conditions, depending on climate scenario and future year. The resulting decrease in thermal resilience enables an average decrease of energy use intensity of 26% with little sensitivity to climate change. The decreased thermal resilience predicted in the future is undesirable, but was not severe enough to require a more energy-intensive resilience mode. Instead, planning is needed to assure vulnerable individuals are given prioritized access to air-conditioned parts of the hub if worst-case heat waves occur.

The ecological management effectiveness (EME) of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) is the degree to which MPAs reach their ecological goals. The significant variability of EME among MPAs has been partly explained by MPA design, management and implementation features (e.g. surface area, enforcement, age of protection). We investigated EME variability by employing, for the first time, Organization Science. Eight Mediterranean MPAs were taken into account as case studies to explore the relationships between EME and MPA features, such as: 1) organizational size (i.e. the ratio between the number of full-time employees and the total MPA surface area), 2) management performance (i.e. the level of effort exerted to enhance and sustain the MPA management, including enforcement), 3) total surface area, and 4) MPA age. The log-response ratios of fish biomass and density in protected vs unprotected (control) areas were used as a proxy of EME. Management performance, organizational size and, to a lesser extent, MPA age were positively correlated with the log-response ratio of fish biomass, whereas total surface area did not display a significant role. None of the four features considered was significantly correlated with the log-response ratio of fish density. Based on our findings, we argue that the employment of Organization Science in the management effectiveness assessment can assist MPA managers to reach MPAs goals more effectively, with a more efficient use of available resources.