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 changing the way predictive models are made and used to increase public trust, integrating solar energy into rural landscapes that increase local benefits and prioritize agricultural benefits, 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

My Google Scholar Page

Full-text copies of my papers are also 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

Jones, Zwickle,Campbell, & Hamm. 2025. "An Integrated Measure of Sustainability Attitudes." Sustainability. 17(24). 10951. https://doi.org/10.3390/su172410951

*Graduate student author  

Public Reports

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

Michigan Large Quantity Water User Survey