About

Sameer Shah is a John C. Garcia Professor and Assistant Professor of Climate Adaptation in the School of Environmental & Forest Sciences (SEFS) at the University of Washington. He is also an Affiliate with the UW Center for Studies in Demography in Ecology, the Center for Environmental Politics, and the Clean Energy Institute. Dr. Shah's expertise lies in the human dimensions of climate change vulnerability and adaptation, with a focus on understanding how systemic marginalization, climate-related change, and disasters interact to create and amplify uneven water, food, and energy insecurities for communities on the frontlines of climate change. His research develops theoretical, conceptual, and empirical analyses of the equity, justice, and sustainability outcomes of climate adaptation and disaster response at multiple scales. Dr. Shah's current research is centered on the causal drivers and impacts associated with climate maladaptation. Through his work in South/Southeast Asia, the contiguous U.S., and Puerto Rico, he and his collaborators seek to advance interventions that reduce the disproportionately larger climate risks experienced by marginalized groups and to shape long-term policy strategies that transform the underlying systems heightening these impacts. At SEFS, he directs the WATERS Research Collaborative (Water, Adaptation & Transformation: Equity, Resilience and Sustainability) and is a co-founder of the SOLVER (Social Vulnerability and Resilience) Research Laboratory.

Research topics

• Ecology
• Business
• Social Science
• Political Science
• Sociology
• Engineering
• Economics
• Medicine
• Environmental science
• Environmental health
• Environmental resource management
• Law
• Geography
• Economic growth

Selected publications

• Four water insecurity concerns about datacenters driving the AI revolution

  PLOS Water · 2026-01-13

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Datacenters are powering the Artificial Intelligence (AI) revolution. However, their water insecurity risks remain neglected. Limited research on the matter quantifies water demand at national or watershed-scales and estimates water use associated with training and using AI models. Research fails to examine water insecurity concerns held by households and communities where datacenters are planned or are operational. This article identifies four water insecurity concerns in the U.S. by synthesizing public reporting and legal filings involving non-governmental organizations, citizen coalition groups, investigative reporters, and individual citizens. These concerns include how datacenters’ development and operation can (i) undermine the democratization of water governance; (ii) contribute to unsustainable water use and rising utility costs; (iii) reduce the flexibility and resilience of water use decision-making; and (iv) increase water use across scales as a result of rising electricity demand. Three areas for future research are identified from the cases reviewed. First, local governments and utilities do not always readily provide water use data associated with datacenter operations; hence, public records should be requested and shared to democratize decision-making. Second, water-related risks posed to public health, rural and land-based livelihoods, and ecosystems from datacenter operations require context-specific empirical investigation. Third, examining whether and how specific water governance arrangements can engender acute health, economic, and environmental risks, especially under extreme events such as heatwaves or droughts, requires institutional analyses. Overall, analyzing datacenters’ volumetric water use within local contexts offers a more relevant analysis of water insecurity concerns and experiences.

  PublisherDOI

• Mitigating compounding hazard impacts on public health through a community co-created toolkit on food-energy-water (FEW) insecurity

  Disaster Prevention and Management An International Journal · 2026-02-26

  article

  Purpose Climatic- and non-climatic hazards pose increasingly complex risks within and across food, energy and water (FEW) systems. These risks create significant public health challenges, given the centrality of FEW systems in everyday life. One evolving risk context includes the prevalence of “compounding” hazards, such as concurrent hurricanes, heatwaves and droughts. Puerto Rico already experiences concurrent hazards that warrant greater preparedness to guard against health risks. Design/methodology/approach To respond to this need and to build on previous community-based participatory research, we partnered with community leaders in the remote community of Corcovada, Puerto Rico, to co-develop, pilot and validate a problem-focused and solutions-oriented survey toolkit for community use. This toolkit is co-designed to help community leaders and public health officials assess FEW insecurities at the household level, capturing experiences and possible health risks before, during and after hazards or compounding hazards. Findings We discuss the toolkit's public health implications and its potential to advance environmental justice and health. Community leaders can leverage local expertise and use this toolkit, or ones developed with a similar methodology, to gather and disseminate hazard information. In doing so, this exercise supports environmental justice principles of informed consent to research and education on social and environmental issues. Originality/value With this tool, community leaders and public health officials can mitigate negative public health impacts by identifying at-risk populations, monitoring community health outcomes and using it as a means to develop mitigation, preparedness and response plans.

  PublisherDOI

• Withdrawn: Mitigating compounding hazard impacts on public health through a community co-created toolkit on food-energy-water (FEW) insecurity

  Disaster Prevention and Management An International Journal · 2025-07-01 · 1 citations

  article

  Purpose Climatic- and non-climatic hazards pose increasingly complex risks with and across food, energy and water (FEW) systems. These risks create significant public health challenges, given the centrality of FEW in everyday life. One, evolving hazard-risk context includes the prevalence of “compounding” hazards, such as concurrent hurricanes, heatwaves and droughts. Puerto Rico already experiences concurrent hazards that warrant greater preparedness to guard against health risks. Design/methodology/approach To respond to this need and to build on previous community-based participatory research (CBPR), we partnered with community leaders in the remote community of Corcovada, Puerto Rico to co-develop, pilot and validate a problem-focused and solutions-orientated survey toolkit for community use. This toolkit is co-designed to help community leaders and public health officials assess FEW insecurity at the household level, capturing experiences and possible health risks before, during and after one or several compounding hazards. Findings We discuss the toolkit’s public health implications and its potential to advance environmental justice and health. Community leaders can leverage local expertise and use this toolkit, or ones developed with a similar methodology, to gather and disseminate hazard information. In doing so, this exercise supports environmental justice principles of informed consent to research and education on social and environmental issues. Originality/value With this tool, community leaders and public health officials can mitigate negative public health impacts by identifying at-risk populations, monitoring community health outcomes and using it as a tool to make mitigation, preparedness and response plans.

  PublisherDOI

• Adapting and Preparing for Disasters: Participatory Mapping for Food, Energy, and Water Security in Puerto Rico

  Environmental Justice · 2025-08-20

  article

  Recurring climatic and non-climatic hazards, combined with state negligence, challenge resource security for communities already burdened by environmental injustices. Grounded in community-based participatory research (CBPR) and action research (AR) traditions, this article reports results from a 3-year partnership with local leaders in Corcovada, Puerto Rico, to understand the relationships between food, energy, and water (FEW) security and community health in the wake of compounding hazards and disasters. Here, and elsewhere in Puerto Rico, environmental deregulation and state abandonment forces local leaders and community-based organizations into becoming the first responders for community-scale FEW insecurities. We conducted a participatory mapping exercise with 16 community leaders to co-learn about local experiences and response efforts after recurring hazards and disasters between 2011 and 2021. Participatory mapping facilitated a horizontal learning process to understand and communicate the interconnections between FEW insecurities and physical and social infrastructures, developing opportunities for knowledge co-production, capacity-building, and education at these intersections. Our partnership continues to strengthen community leadership in local decision-making, disaster mitigation, and resource management and allocation—and contributes a problem-oriented AR case for supporting frontline communities.

  PublisherDOI

• (De)centralized Water Futures: Key Dimensions of Infrastructure, Governance, and Operations

  Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews Water · 2025-09-01 · 3 citations

  articleOpen access

  Water system centralization and decentralization have variously been promoted as key to achieving household water security and Sustainable Development Goal 6.1. We argue that the lack of specificity with which scholars and practitioners use the terms centralization and decentralization limits our understanding of different water system configurations and their impacts. In this Primer, we provide a framework for thinking about levels of (de)centralization across three linked system dimensions: infrastructure, governance, and operations and maintenance. We encourage those analyzing water systems to characterize (de)centralization with respect to these multiple dimensions, as well as the system's broader political-economic and hydro-climatic contexts. Emphasizing the importance of delineating the scale of analysis, we highlight distinct system configurations and the prevalence of hybridity. Increased specificity about dimensions and scale can clarify how the character of, or changes to, a given system impact users, which is critical to assessing their implications for water security, sustainability, and equity. We conclude with recommendations for future research to analyze the opportunities and challenges associated with different water system configurations. This article is categorized under: Human Water > Water Governance.

  PublisherDOI

• Sustainability for the Forgotten

  The AAG Review of Books · 2025-02-27 · 1 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Household water insecurity will complicate the ongoing COVID-19 response: Evidence from 29 sites in 23 low- and middle-income countries

  UNC Libraries · 2025-05-13

  articleOpen access
  PublisherDOI

• Beyond unintentionality: considering climate maladaptation as cyclical

  Climatic Change · 2025-04-01 · 7 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• The rise of hazard gentrification

  International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction · 2025-05-30 · 4 citations

  articleSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Centering environmental justice in United States (U.S.) National Climate Assessments (NCAs): a historical and contemporary analysis

  Climatic Change · 2025-04-24 · 2 citations

  articleOpen access

  Abstract Since 1990, the U.S. Global Change Research Program has published five cross-sectoral National Climate Assessment (NCA) reports. Federal, state, and local governments, policymakers, and the public employ NCAs to analyze climate risks, impacts, and adaptation and mitigation options. This article surveys the NCA landscape and makes the case for centering environmental justice (EJ) to inform actionable, relevant, and accessible climate change science and responses. Case studies of NCA1 through NCA5, released during the Clinton, Obama, Trump, and Biden presidential administrations, examine the roles of EJ, the conceptual integration of transdisciplinary research efforts, and data equity considerations. The paper concludes with policy recommendations to “center” EJ into climate assessments.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Matt Hall

  Children's Hospital Association

  601 shared

• Jay G. Berry

  Harvard University

  460 shared

• J Neff

  Johns Hopkins University

  354 shared

• Aaron E. Carroll

  Providence College

  347 shared

• Maria Kowalkowski

  346 shared

• Marla Hall

  East Carolina University

  346 shared

• Howard Bauchner

  National University of Singapore

  346 shared

• David Antoš

  Washington University in St. Louis

  346 shared

Labs

• WATERS Research CollaborativePI

Education

• Ph.D., in Resources, Environment & Sustainability, Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability

  The University of British Columbia

  2021

• Master of Science (MSc.), Resource Management and Environmental Studies, Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability

  The University of British Columbia

  2015

• Bachelor of Environmental Studies (B.ES), Honours Co-operative in Environment and Resource Studies (, Environment & Resource Studies

  University of Waterloo

  2012