College of Agriculture & Natural Resources Department of Community Sustainability

Adam is an interdisciplinary social scientist whose research focuses on sustainable natural resource management. His work draws from the fields of decision science, behavioral change, risk perception, and risk communication. His active research projects currently involve collaborative water management at the local level, sustainable approaches to water governance, and working with communities affected by environmental contamination in Michigan. Adam’s academic training and early research was centered around how perceptions of environmental risks influence decision making at the individual level. Motivated by a passion to address the pressing societal challenges posed by climate change, however, he has shifted his research to support change at the policy level. Adam holds a joint appointment with the Department of Community Sustainability and the Environmental Science and Policy Program.

Selected Publications

Full-text copies of my papers are available on ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Adam-Zwickle 

Zwickle, Feltman,* Brady,* Kendall & Hyndman. 2021. “Sustainable irrigation through local collaborative governance: Evidence for a structural fix in Kansas.” Environmental Science & Policy. 124: 517-526. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2021.07.021.

Wilson, Zwickle, & Walpole.* 2019. "Developing a Broadly Applicable Measure of Risk Perception." Risk Analysis. 39 (4), 777-791. https://doi.org/10.1111/risa.13207

Nouman*, Swensen*, Zipper, Zwickle, & Wardropper. 2025 “Using values-informed mental models to understand farmer, water manager, and scientist use and perceptions of hydrologic models” Journal of Hydrology. 658, 133171. DOI: 10.1016/j.jhydrol.2025.133171

Duan, Takahashi, & Zwickle. 2022. “Refining the application of construal level theory: Egocentric and nonegocentric psychological distances in climate change visual communication.” Environmental Communication. 16:1, 92-107. https://doi.org/10.1080/17524032.2021.1964999

Zwickle & Jones. “Sustainability Knowledge and Attitudes: Assessing latent constructs.” 2018 In: W. Leal, J. Callewaert, R. Marans (Eds.), Handbook of Sustainability and Social Science Research. World Sustainability Series. Cham: Springer. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-67122-2_25

*Graduate student author  

My Google Scholar Page

Public Reports

Building Capacity for Collaborative Governance through a Participatory Modeling Approach – Water User Committees in Michigan

Michigan Large Quantity Water User Survey