Ka wai nui means "the big water" in Hawaiian and no doubt reflects the fact that this feature was a large, possibly marine or estuarine, body of water at the time when the area was first settled by Polynesians. Today, nearly all of the marsh is covered by vegetation, and this is either floating on water, growing on a mat of peat that is floating on water, or in the upper-most parts of the marsh a wet meadow. The latter area is utilized by cattle for grazing when not flooded by high water level. Most of the marsh lies behind a levee constructed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for flood control purposes. The marsh is the lowland recipient of sometimes very heavy rainfall in Maunawili Valley. The marsh outlet is through a man-made channel called Oneawa Channel.
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