Eric Booth
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egbooth.bsky.social
Eric Booth
@egbooth.bsky.social
Hydroecologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Interested in interactions between water, land, climate, humans, food, energy, etc. and transdisciplinary community-engaged research. Views shared here are my own. https://www.ericbooth.org/
Fully support this: "We maintain that cultivating situated engagement, with researchers from different disciplines becoming part of and explicitly involved in the water problems they are jointly studying and aspire to help solve, is one promising approach to advance socio-hydrology."
A situated proposal for a grounded approach to socio-hydrology
Socio-hydrology, a range of attempts to better account for ‘the social’ in hydrological processes, has made significant progress during the Panta Rhei…
www.sciencedirect.com
December 31, 2025 at 12:54 AM
Reposted by Eric Booth
Another example - from just today - of excellent and essential climate and weather research from @ncar-ucar.bsky.social with clear impacts on flood-prone communities
doi.org/10.1038/s432... #NCAR
Moisture from US Corn Belt fuels more intense convective storms - Communications Earth & Environment
The groundwater-crop-irrigation interactions across the US Corn Belt amplify convective storm frequency, extend storm lifetime, and accelerate storm movement, based on a high-resolution regional clima...
doi.org
December 17, 2025 at 10:49 PM
Another example - from just today - of excellent and essential climate and weather research from @ncar-ucar.bsky.social with clear impacts on flood-prone communities
doi.org/10.1038/s432... #NCAR
Moisture from US Corn Belt fuels more intense convective storms - Communications Earth & Environment
The groundwater-crop-irrigation interactions across the US Corn Belt amplify convective storm frequency, extend storm lifetime, and accelerate storm movement, based on a high-resolution regional clima...
doi.org
December 17, 2025 at 10:49 PM
Reposted by Eric Booth
Purdue's "plan" to have AI competencies, including "projects" for assessment in place by Fall of 2026 is absurd, impossible, and counterproductive. We have good models for addressing the challenge and this ain't it. www.insidehighered.com/opinion/colu...
Purdue to students: Come and be an AI meat widget!
There are emerging best practices for meeting the challenge of AI in education. What Purdue is doing is the opposite.
www.insidehighered.com
December 17, 2025 at 1:30 PM
Reposted by Eric Booth
Zillow’s climate score rollback is a wake-up call: build open, future‑conditions federal flood maps -- gold‑standard, trustworthy data for building codes, mortgages, and our future. Column today: open.substack.com/pub/susanpcr...
Zillow’s climate risk reversal looks like a setback. It’s really a wake‑up call.
When private models sow confusion, it’s a flashing warning sign that Washington needs to fix federal flood maps,
open.substack.com
December 3, 2025 at 1:44 PM
Always appreciate introspection from the hydrologic modeling community. Reflecting and acting on the social aspects of modeling doi.org/10.5194/hess...
HESS Opinions: Reflecting and acting on the social aspects of modeling
Abstract. Hydrological models are generally acknowledged as subjective and uncertain, yet they are often still perceived as neutral, meaning they are seen as not taking sides. This notion of neutralit...
doi.org
November 11, 2025 at 2:43 PM
Reposted by Eric Booth
The NWS Chicago area forecast discussion is WILD
November 9, 2025 at 4:36 PM
Super excited to hear this!!
We're hiring in history of science at UW Madison! TT Assistant Professorship with a focus on water. Joint appointment between the History and Integrated Liberal Studies depts, and part of a university-wide hiring cluster on earth/sustainability science. jobs.wisc.edu/jobs/profess... #STS #HSMT
Professor of History - Madison, Wisconsin, United States
Current Employees: If you are currently employed at any of the Universities of Wisconsin, log in to Workday to apply through the internal application process.Job Category:FacultyEmployment Type:Regula...
jobs.wisc.edu
November 8, 2025 at 1:34 PM
Reposted by Eric Booth
Insurers plan for 1-in-200-year storms. Why don’t governments?

If a Melissa-level hurricane hit the Northeast, would we be ready? New column looks at climate whiplash, risk, and what real preparedness means.

open.substack.com/pub/susanpcr...
Insurers plan for extreme events that could crater their solvency. Shouldn’t all levels of government do the same?
What if a storm like Melissa hit the northeast US?
open.substack.com
November 7, 2025 at 1:29 PM
Reposted by Eric Booth
You VERY rarely ever see a satellite presentation like this anywhere in the world. And you certainly don't expect to see it this close to a mountainous island.
As of 5am EDT on Tuesday, #Melissa is the 8th strongest Atlantic hurricane on record by central pressure (901 mb).
October 28, 2025 at 11:36 AM
Beautiful autumn morning light today at Parfrey's Glen near Merrimac #wisconsin
October 27, 2025 at 12:35 AM
Reposted by Eric Booth
I’ve got a short piece up in The Conversation on the catastrophic flooding in Southwest Alaska from ex-typhoon Halong and the challenges of recovery work. #akwx #ExtremeWeather #Alaska #AlaskaSky

theconversation.com/typhoon-leav...
Typhoon leaves flooded Alaska villages facing a storm recovery far tougher than most Americans will ever experience
‘As the storm approached Alaska, everything went sideways,’ leaving people no time to evacuate and little time to prepare. An Alaska meteorologist explains what happened and the challenges ahead.
theconversation.com
October 14, 2025 at 4:55 PM
Reposted by Eric Booth
OpenAI's VP for education recently said the company wanted to become "core infrastructure" for schools and universities. Any infrastructure, though, always depends on habituating users to its technical affordances - so I've been trying to track how it's doing that 🧵 www.nytimes.com/2025/06/07/t...
Welcome to Campus. Here’s Your ChatGPT.
www.nytimes.com
September 26, 2025 at 9:51 PM
Reposted by Eric Booth
My latest column for the Chronicle of Higher Ed is now live. It's an argument for including AI-critical voices in campus conversations and policymaking workgroups, and I'm proud to get this dissenting piece into the mainstream genAI/higher ed discourse. Please read and share if you're so inclined 🙂
Advice | Sometimes We Resist AI for Good Reasons
Why higher ed needs to listen to the contrarians in setting policies on using tools like ChatGPT in faculty work.
www.chronicle.com
September 24, 2025 at 5:47 PM
Reposted by Eric Booth
Just like NOAA provides weather info for communities, NOAA should provide free, credible, & actionable information about a range climate impacts. For some climate hazards, they do. But not yet for future rainfall. Our new paper provides a workaround until they do. iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1...
September 20, 2025 at 6:15 PM
I'm very excited and honored to lead this year's Water Resources Management practicum @uwmadison.bsky.social on the 60th anniversary of this excellent MS program nelson.wisc.edu/the-commons/...
Celebrating 60 Years of Watershed Stewardship | The Commons Magazine
For 60 years, the water resources management practicum has trained generations of water leaders — and transformed communities, ecosystems, and policy along the way.
nelson.wisc.edu
September 16, 2025 at 2:42 PM
Reposted by Eric Booth
Finally! 🤩 Our position piece: Against the Uncritical Adoption of 'AI' Technologies in Academia:
doi.org/10.5281/zeno...

We unpick the tech industry’s marketing, hype, & harm; and we argue for safeguarding higher education, critical
thinking, expertise, academic freedom, & scientific integrity.
1/n
September 6, 2025 at 8:13 AM
Reposted by Eric Booth
This piece from @vauhinivara.bsky.social is an object example of what journalists should be doing with these questions unlike the Hard Fork infomercialists. (Might need to sign in to read.) www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...
How Chatbots and AI Are Already Transforming Kids' Classrooms
Educators across the country are bringing chatbots into their lesson plans. Will it help kids learn or is it just another doomed ed-tech fad?
www.bloomberg.com
September 5, 2025 at 7:54 PM
Wonderful article about my friend and colleague @creekthinker.bsky.social , her research, and her amazing students! news.wisc.edu/uw-madison-s...
After the flood
UW students apply classroom learning to support a Wisconsin community in healing.
news.wisc.edu
August 28, 2025 at 3:47 AM
Reposted by Eric Booth
Good news: bipartisan legislation to reauthorize Sea Grant programs around the country (including the Great Lake states), due to the high value generated compared to the cost
ecomagazine.com/news/policy/...
US Legislation to Reauthorize the National Sea Grant College Program - environment coastal & offshore
Legislation was introduced to reauthorize the National Sea Grant College Program, a partnership between the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and 34 university-based programs in e...
ecomagazine.com
August 21, 2025 at 11:35 PM
Reposted by Eric Booth
Annual flood series for the Milwaukee River at Milwaukee, just downstream of I-43 bridge, 1915-2023. Top of the scale is 20,000 cfs, flood of record was 18,200 cfs. At 2:30 AM this morning it was at 19700 cfs, at 9AM, 19300 cfs, off-scale (too high for the gage?) in between.
August 10, 2025 at 6:24 PM
Reposted by Eric Booth
Here’s the USGS chart.
August 10, 2025 at 4:05 PM
Reposted by Eric Booth
The official state 24-hour rainfall record is 11.72” from Mellon in 1946.

It will have to be decided if the MPS - Madison High School gauge/rain total gets investigated for a possible new record.
August 10, 2025 at 1:15 PM
Reposted by Eric Booth
Saturday and Sunday August 9-10 are Critical Weather Days for Wisconet because of the Moderate Risk (Level 3/4) of Excessive Rainfall.

Stay weather aware this weekend and don't attempt to drive through flooded roadways.

57% of flood fatalities occur on moderate/high risk days.
August 8, 2025 at 8:34 PM
Reposted by Eric Booth
Counterpoint: no we don't.
August 4, 2025 at 5:39 PM