Dr. Paula R. Buchanan

BIOGRAPHY:

Dr. Paula R. Buchanan is a practitioner‑academic (“pracademic”), socio-hydrologist, and disaster and emergency management researcher. She researches sustainable drinking water access issues, focusing on the intersections between public health, risk, science communication, sociology, and emergency management.  As a socio-hydrologist, her research focuses on people’s and communities’ sustainable access to clean drinking water in metropolitan areas and cities, specifically access that is from public water systems. Dr. Buchanan's research also explores how public water utilities and other interested parties, including emergency managers, communicate with urban populations about how their behaviors can either positively or negatively impact the drinking water cycle. In the context of disaster and emergency management research and practice, sustainable drinking water access is included as part of the Emergency Support Function 11 (ESF 11):  Food and Water, which addresses the provision of safe and sufficient drinking water during disasters.

With this socio-hydrology-based work, Dr. Buchanan aims to understand how human behaviors, perceptions, and communication patterns can make urban drinking water systems more resilient and sustainable to improve public health before, during, and after disasters occur. Her work also focuses on improving risk communication by enhancing researchers’ and practitioners’ science communication skills to make messaging more efficient and effective for public education and outreach purposes.  Another central question in Dr. Buchanan’s research is the extent to which socio-technical systems function as a communication channel to provide populations with accurate information to mitigate the impacts associated with, or exacerbated by, a lack of sustainable drinking water access.

As a self-proclaimed data nerd, Dr. Buchanan is also passionate about how public water utilities and emergency management agencies use data science, information technology, and data visualizations as tools to more effectively communicate with targeted audiences.