About

Alison E. Adams is an Associate Professor in the School of Forest, Fisheries, and Geomatics Sciences at the University of Florida, within the Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences. Her research and teaching efforts focus on the environment and natural resources, community and civic organizing, and environmental social movements. She examines issues related to environmental conflicts, natural resource decision-making in rural communities, and community engagement in environmental problems, utilizing social science concepts to analyze environmental and social change, particularly concerning environmental risks, threats, hazards, and human health. Her work explores how communities and organizations engage with environmental conflicts and how citizens participate democratically in environmental decision-making. Her research has been published in various social science and interdisciplinary outlets, and her current work investigates the dynamics between communities and extractive industries, as well as community conflicts over contamination and siting decisions.

Research topics

• Sociology
• Political Science
• Geography
• Computer Science
• Medicine
• Telecommunications
• Psychology
• Clinical psychology
• Nursing
• Economics
• Law
• Archaeology
• Ecology
• Demography
• Natural resource economics
• Environmental protection
• Environmental planning
• Mathematics
• Statistics
• Business
• Econometrics
• Engineering
• Political economy
• Economy

Selected publications

• The Ecological-Symbolic Perspective and Ontological Security: An Analysis of Lead Contamination

  Society & Natural Resources · 2026-02-01

  articleCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Regional Forest Health Monitoring Program: 2024 Report

  2025-05-01

  report

  2024 Regional Forest Health Monitoring Program Report

  PublisherDOI

• Barriers to Hurricane Recovery in Frontline Communities: Climate Injustice on Florida’s West Coast

  Environmental Justice · 2025-06-04

  article

  Extant research has established that increasing global temperatures, sea level rise, and an increase in the severity and intensity of extreme weather events have significant implications for vulnerable communities, especially in coastal regions. We add to this body of literature by drawing on the cases of two recent Florida hurricanes to investigate how coastal communities were impacted by these events. In 2022, Hurricane Ian devastated southwest Florida, and less than a year later, Hurricane Idalia ravaged small islands and coastal communities along Florida’s Big Bend. We analyzed a variety of data sources including media coverage following each of the hurricanes, press releases, government reports, and other relevant materials to examine the impacts and recovery efforts in vulnerable communities along the coast in both cases, utilizing a climate justice framework. Results revealed that, in both cases, disparities on Florida’s west coast were not fully met by inequitable aid. Our analysis revealed themes of climate injustices in vulnerable communities, inadequate infrastructure in the face of climate change, as well as significant issues related to flooding and water contamination. We conclude our article by highlighting the need for improved infrastructure and policy to help communities recuperate following inevitable future climate events, as well as by making specific recommendations and suggestions regarding improved disaster preparation and recovery measures.

  PublisherDOI

• Recreation Impacts on Dimensions of Northeast Regional Forest Health

  2024-11-15 · 1 citations

  report

  FEMC Regional project 2023-2024: Recreation Impacts on Dimensions of Northeast Regional Forest Health

  PublisherDOI

• Local environmental movements

  Edward Elgar Publishing eBooks · 2024-04-03 · 1 citations

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  Local environmental movements are voluntary organizations that focus primarily on community-level campaigns, often centered on issues surrounding toxic contamination, human exposures, and related environmental harms. Local environmental movements have been pervasive throughout the United States since the emergence of broader environmental concerns starting in the 1970s, and they have been bellwethers for national and international movements. This entry will provide a brief overview of the emergence of local environmental movements in the U.S. and a discussion of the differences between local environmental movements and their national counterparts. We focus particularly on local environmental movements that center on environmental health and illness issues stemming from localized environmental hazards and threats, especially in rural communities, industrial areas, and vulnerable urban neighborhoods. We conclude our entry with a discussion of avenues for future research.

  PublisherDOI

• Environmental Risk and Chemical Weapons Disposal: The Case of the U.S. Army’s Chemical Demilitarization Program

  Society & Natural Resources · 2024-12-15

  article
  PublisherDOI

• The Impacts of Landscape Loss on Industrial Communities: Solastalgia in Coal Regions

  Social Currents · 2024-08-23 · 3 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Extant research has documented how coal industries can have devastating impacts on industrial communities. While much of the sociological research on climate change has focused on issues of environmental sustainability and resilience, comparatively less research has centered around the social and emotional consequences of climate change in the context of industrial areas. To attend to this gap in the literature, we investigate how coal communities grieve lost landscapes and how that grief informs responses to future environmental threats. To do this, we build on and extend recent work that has argued for the sociological relevance of the concept of solastalgia in analyzing how communities cope with the impacts of natural and technological disasters at the local level. The term solastalgia describes the distress communities experience as they lose landscapes they once cherished in the wake of events such as expanding extractive activities. Specifically, we analyzed a coal mining region in the Czech Republic to examine how communities experience solastalgia in regions that have been chronically exploited for industrial energy extraction over time. Our findings revealed how solastalgia within industrial and coal communities can translate across time and generations. We use the term intergenerational solastalgia to capture this community-level phenomenon.

  PublisherDOI

• Assessing an assets-based environmental fellowship through a community cultural wealth lens

  Environmental Education Research · 2024-03-24 · 1 citations

  articleSenior author

  Civic engagement in environmental issues creates opportunities for students to explore and combine interests in the environment and community action as well as to develop new perspectives related to social justice issues. This manuscript examines the outcomes of a yearlong eco-civic fellowship for undergraduates representing a variety of cultural backgrounds and identities. The program design and assessment employed an assets-based approach, with analysis methods grounded in the community cultural wealth (CCW) framework and science capital. Pre-interviews indicated that participants (n = 10) self-reported high levels of science and aspirational capital but wanted to grow their social, linguistic, and navigational capital. Post-interviews suggested that the fellowship enhanced all forms of capital, but further development of linguistic capital through improved science communication skills was desired. The assets-based approach allowed the program to leverage the resources, knowledge, and experiences students brought to the fellowship while enhancing areas in which students expressed a desire for growth. Recommendations for using assets-based approaches in programming are also discussed.

  PublisherDOI

• Regional Forest Health Monitoring Program: 2023 Report

  2024-05-09

  report

  2023 Regional Forest Health Monitoring Program Report

  PublisherDOI

• Resisting coloniality in agriculture: A decolonial analysis of Florida’s agricultural migrant workers’ experiences

  Agriculture and Human Values · 2024-05-08 · 2 citations

  article
  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Thomas E. Shriver

  North Carolina State University

  49 shared

• Sarin Blawatt

  University of British Columbia

  21 shared

• Chris M. Messer

  Colorado State University Pueblo

  19 shared

• Martin T. Schechter

  15 shared

• Eugenia Oviedo‐Joekes

  University of British Columbia

  15 shared

• Rhys Finnick

  Providence Health Care

  9 shared

• Damian C. Adams

  University of Florida

  7 shared

• Julie Lajeunesse

  Island Health

  6 shared