Anthropology researchers publish on Earth’s future

Anthropology Professor John Ziker and Sarah Whitaker, an anthropology post-doctoral researcher in The Resilience Institute, are co-authors on a new publication in Earth's future presenting a vision and blueprint for a novel flood early warning system within a decision-making framework called FEWS-DM that repositions decision-making as an equal partner in the flood forecasting process - not a passive recipient of its outputs.

Globally, floods are becoming more severe, creating urgent demand for early warning systems that deliver useful, actionable information. Most current warning systems focus on predicting water levels but provide limited support for interpreting uncertainty or guiding real-world decisions. This paper introduces the FEWS-DM framework, which integrates flood forecasting with human behavior and decision science to transform warnings into decision-support tools tailored to user needs.

"The FEWS-DM puts social sciences like anthropology front and center in contributing solutions to global dilemmas, such as catastrophic, life-threatening inland flooding. In our project the anthropological research helps inform the work of the other teams," Ziker said.

The authors acknowledge the support of the U.S. Department of Defense, Department of the Navy, the Office of Naval Research award N00014‐23‐1‐2735.

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