Whitaker and Ziker publish on flood resilience at U.S. military bases

Sarah Whitaker, research scholar in the Department of Anthropology, and John Ziker, distinguished professor in the Department of Anthropology, published a paper in the journal "Human Organization." The paper derives insights from 46 interviews and participant observation with military and civilian infrastructure decision makers at two U.S. Army installations, identifying key institutional factors that influence decision making.

The paper suggests Department of Defense installations vulnerable to flooding can increase their flood resilience by: prioritizing flooding at all levels of the chain of command, collaborating with civilian infrastructure providers, and developing installation-level flood early-warning systems rooted in high-accuracy weather/hydrological forecasting, uncertainty quantification, and understanding of human behavior.

The research was funded by Department of Defense, Department of the Navy, Office of Naval Research, N00014-23-1-2735 and N00014-25-1-2411.

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