Spatial Backbone

The spatial backbone is a read-only dataset assembled from 18 authoritative sources maintained by state and federal agencies. It is built in a separate pipeline from the platform itself and loaded as an immutable snapshot. The platform reads that snapshot — it never writes spatial data.

What the Backbone Contains

Every source dataset passes through the same process: geographic boundaries are indexed onto a uniform hexagonal grid (~0.74 km per cell), loaded as zone records, and linked to the moku district that contains them. The result is a single spatial model where every zone — a wetland polygon, a school campus, a steward parcel — is reachable from any moku through shared grid cells.

| Layer | Source Authority | Features | |-----------------------------|-------------------------------|-------------| | Moku districts | Traditional governance | 33 | | Agricultural land (IAL) | State Land Use Commission | 15 dockets | | Agricultural baseline | Statewide Ag Land Use (2015) | 5,024 | | Conservation reserves | DLNR | 376 | | Government steward parcels | State/county land agencies | 25,129 | | Wetlands (NWI) | USFWS | 4,974 | | Parks | DLNR | 70 | | Zoning districts | City & County of Honolulu | 1,965 | | Public schools | DOE | 288 | | Post-secondary campuses | UH + private institutions | 85 | | Highways | HDOT (HPMS) | 2,075 | | Trails | Na Ala Hele | 45 | | Rail alignment | HART | 4 sections | | Rail stations | HART | 21 | | Opportunity zones | Federal designation | 25 | | Career pathways | Workforce development | 13 clusters | | Environment monitoring | Research sites | 3+ | | Land clusters | Community networks | 1+ |

How It Connects

The backbone creates a chain from island-level context down to individual locations:

Moku (33 districts) contain grid cells (19,720 hexagons). Each cell can overlap with multiple zones — an agricultural parcel, a wetland, a school district — all linked through the same spatial index. When a project or producer enters the system with GPS coordinates, the system converts those coordinates to a grid cell, resolves the cell to its containing moku, and inherits the full zone context automatically.

This means you never manually assign a project to a district or tag it with overlapping land designations. The backbone handles spatial assignment from a single coordinate.

33 Moku Districts

| Island | Count | Examples | |------------|-------|-------------------------------------------------------| | Oahu | 6 | Kona, Ewa, Waianae, Waialua, Koolaupoko, Koolauloa | | Maui | 12 | Lahaina, Kaanapali, Wailuku, and 9 more | | Hawaii | 6 | Kohala, Kona, Kau, Puna, Hilo, Hamakua | | Kauai | 5 | Kona, Puna, Koolau, Halelea, Na Pali | | Molokai | 2 | Koolau, Kona | | Lanai | 1 | Lanai | | Niihau | 1 | Niihau |

Why Read-Only Matters

The backbone is authoritative because it comes from authoritative sources. No subscriber, admin, or API call can modify zone boundaries, reclassify agricultural land, or move a school. When a source agency updates their data (e.g., a new IAL docket is approved), the pipeline reruns and the backbone is reloaded. This separation ensures that governance decisions in the platform rest on spatial data the platform did not create.