White, Gilbert (1911–2006)

Gilbert Fowler White was a prominent and influential American geographer, known as the father of floodplain management in the United States, although his environmental research and policy influences extended to water resources and global environmental issues. He was an advocate of practical applied research to improve the human condition. White was born in Chicago, grew up near the University of Chicago campus, and spent summers working on a ranch in Wyoming. He credited both environments with helping shape his research interests and perspectives.

Having satisfied all the requirements for a doctorate except the dissertation at Chicago, White accompanied his PhD advisor, Harlan Barrows, to Washington, D.C., in 1934 to work for the Mississippi Valley Committee of the Public Works Administration. The tenure in Washington was [Page 3095]anticipated to last 6 months, but 8 years later, White was still there. He worked as a staff member for a number of committees and commissions related to natural resources and flood control. The government service helped provide White with a research agenda and skills to implement the policy implications of research.

His Quaker convictions precluded his working for the federal government during World War II, so he left to complete his doctoral dissertation prior to performing relief work in France and then being interned in Germany. His dissertation, Human Adjustment to Floods, is seen by many as the seminal work leading to the widespread adoption of nonstructural alternatives to dams and levees to cope with flood hazards in the United States. White himself characterized his dissertation as a call to consider a broad range of possible adjustments to floods and to fully evaluate all the consequences of each adjustment. Human Adjustment to Floods led to the field of floodplain management.

After World War II, White became president of Haverford College, before returning to the University of Chicago in 1955 as a professor of geography. At Chicago, he initiated a program of research on natural hazards, much of which evolved from ideas put forth in his dissertation. He mentored numerous students who made their own contributions to natural hazards research, education, and policy, effectively establishing the foundations of the hazards research paradigm still practiced in geography. In 1970, White moved to the University of Colorado, where he continued his hazards research activities, became director of the Institute of Behavioral Science, and eventually founded the interdisciplinary Natural Hazards Research and Applications Information Center. The center continues to serve as a clearinghouse for hazards research and policy, helping provide a bridge between hazards researchers and practitioners.

Although best known in the United States for his contribution to natural hazards research, White was active in many other environmental spheres. His research conducted with the epidemiologist David Bradley and White's wife, Anne U. White on domestic water use in East Africa served as a model for other researchers in other locations. White felt that international cooperation on river basin development could facilitate other forms of peaceful relations among nations and chaired an advisory group to the United Nations on the Lower Mekong River. White published prolifically throughout his career, until a few years before his death. He served on many national and international committees, commissions, and advisory groups dealing with a wide range of environmental issues, including climate change, water supply, human-made lakes, pollution, the environmental effects of nuclear war, nuclear waste storage, and hazards other than floods.

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