management of research projects in the historic environment

Select your cookie preferences

We use cookies and similar tools that are necessary to enable you to make purchases, to enhance your shopping experiences and to provide our services, as detailed in our Cookie notice . We also use these cookies to understand how customers use our services (for example, by measuring site visits) so we can make improvements.

If you agree, we'll also use cookies to complement your shopping experience across the Amazon stores as described in our Cookie notice . Your choice applies to using first-party and third-party advertising cookies on this service. Cookies store or access standard device information such as a unique identifier. The 96 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products. Click "Decline" to reject, or "Customise" to make more detailed advertising choices, or learn more. You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences , as described in the Cookie notice. To learn more about how and for what purposes Amazon uses personal information (such as Amazon Store order history), please visit our Privacy notice .

• Science, Nature & Maths
• Engineering & Technology
• Civil Engineering

Sorry, there was a problem.

Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet or computer – no Kindle device required .

Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.

Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.

Image Unavailable

• To view this video download Flash Player

Management of Research Projects in the Historic Environment: Morphe Project Manger's Guide (Historic England Guidance) Paperback – 4 Jan. 2015

• ISBN-10 1848024223
• ISBN-13 978-1848024229
• Publication date 4 Jan. 2015
• Language English
• Dimensions 21.01 x 0.25 x 27.94 cm
• Print length 40 pages
• See all details

Product description

About the author, product details.

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Historic England (4 Jan. 2015)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 40 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1848024223
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1848024229
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 21.01 x 0.25 x 27.94 cm
• 13,327 in Engineering (Books)
• 57,071 in Other Reference by Subject
• 61,969 in Engineering & Technology

Customer reviews

• 5 star 4 star 3 star 2 star 1 star 5 star 100% 0% 0% 0% 0% 100%
• 5 star 4 star 3 star 2 star 1 star 4 star 100% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0%
• 5 star 4 star 3 star 2 star 1 star 3 star 100% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0%
• 5 star 4 star 3 star 2 star 1 star 2 star 100% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0%
• 5 star 4 star 3 star 2 star 1 star 1 star 100% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0%

Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings, help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.

To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyses reviews to verify trustworthiness.

No customer reviews

• UK Modern Slavery Statement
• Amazon Science
• Sell on Amazon
• Sell on Amazon Business
• Sell on Amazon Handmade
• Associates Programme
• Fulfilment by Amazon
• Seller Fulfilled Prime
• Advertise Your Products
• Independently Publish with Us
• Host an Amazon Hub
• › See More Make Money with Us
• The Amazon Barclaycard
• Credit Card
• Amazon Money Store
• Amazon Currency Converter
• Payment Methods Help
• Shop with Points
• Top Up Your Account
• Top Up Your Account in Store
• COVID-19 and Amazon
• Track Packages or View Orders
• Delivery Rates & Policies
• Returns & Replacements
• Manage Your Content and Devices
• Amazon Mobile App
• Customer Service
• Accessibility

• Conditions of Use & Sale
• Privacy Notice
• Cookies Notice
• Interest-Based Ads Notice

Server Busy

Our servers are getting hit pretty hard right now. To continue shopping, enter the characters as they are shown in the image below.

Management of Research Projects in the Historic Environment: Morphe Project Manger's Guide (Paperback)

• Description
• About the Author
• Reviews & Media

This guide will help you plan and run an effective project. It is written for those planning research and research and development (R&D) projects in the historic environment.

• Project Management
• Professional Practice
• Codes & Standards

• Professional & Technical
• Architecture

Enjoy Prime FREE for 30 days

Here's what Amazon Prime has to offer:

Sorry, there was a problem.

Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet or computer – no Kindle device required .

Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.

Using your mobile phone camera, scan the code below and download the Kindle app.

Image Unavailable

• To view this video, download Flash Player

Management of Research Projects in the Historic Environment: MoRPHE Project Manger's Guide Paperback – April 30 2015

Purchase options and add-ons.

This guide will help you plan and run an effective project. It is written for those planning research and research and development (R&D) projects in the historic environment. Research and R&D projects funded by Historic England will be required as a condition of grant or contract to follow this guidance. Specifically this means: • using in all communications the terminology for project roles, project stages and project documents covered in this guide and associated project planning notes, and as defined in the Glossary • providing the key documents in the format set out in Appendix 2, with an accompanying document control grid and contact details • following supplementary guidance for particular project types set out in the accompanying series of Project Planning Notes, and specific guidance for funding applicants. For others working in the historic environment sector, the guide provides good practice advice based on project management both in the sector and in industries as varied as construction and IT.

• Print length 37 pages
• Language English
• Publication date April 30 2015
• Dimensions 21.01 x 0.25 x 27.94 cm
• ISBN-10 1848024223
• ISBN-13 978-1848024229
• See all details

Product description

Book description, about the author, product details.

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Historic England (April 30 2015)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 37 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1848024223
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1848024229
• Item weight ‏ : ‎ 154 g
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 21.01 x 0.25 x 27.94 cm
• #193 in Architectural Codes & Standards (Books)
• #427 in Architectural Preservation (Books)
• #616 in Architectural Planning

Customer reviews

• 5 star 4 star 3 star 2 star 1 star 5 star 100% 0% 0% 0% 0% 100%
• 5 star 4 star 3 star 2 star 1 star 4 star 100% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0%
• 5 star 4 star 3 star 2 star 1 star 3 star 100% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0%
• 5 star 4 star 3 star 2 star 1 star 2 star 100% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0%
• 5 star 4 star 3 star 2 star 1 star 1 star 100% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0%

No customer reviews

• Amazon and Our Planet
• Modern Slavery Statement
• Investor Relations
• Press Releases
• Amazon Science
• Sell on Amazon
• Supply to Amazon
• Become an Affiliate
• Protect & Build Your Brand
• Sell on Amazon Handmade
• Advertise Your Products
• Independently Publish with Us
• Host an Amazon Hub
• Amazon.ca Rewards Mastercard
• Shop with Points
• Reload Your Balance
• Amazon Currency Converter
• Amazon Cash
• Shipping Rates & Policies
• Amazon Prime
• Returns Are Easy
• Manage your Content and Devices
• Recalls and Product Safety Alerts
• Registry & Gift List
• Customer Service

• Conditions of Use
• Privacy Notice
• Interest-Based Ads
• Amazon.com.ca ULC | 40 King Street W 47th Floor, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, M5H 3Y2 |1-877-586-3230

• Sign in
• My Account
• Basket  

Items related to Management of Research Projects in the Historic Environment:...

Management of research projects in the historic environment: morphe project manger's guide (historic england guidance) - softcover.

• About this edition

This guide will help you plan and run an effective project. It is written for those planning research and research and development (R&D) projects in the historic environment. Research and R&D projects funded by Historic England will be required as a condition of grant or contract to follow this guidance. Specifically this means: * using in all communications the terminology for project roles, project stages and project documents covered in this guide and associated project planning notes, and as defined in the Glossary * providing the key documents in the format set out in Appendix 2, with an accompanying document control grid and contact details * following supplementary guidance for particular project types set out in the accompanying series of Project Planning Notes, and specific guidance for funding applicants. For others working in the historic environment sector, the guide provides good practice advice based on project management both in the sector and in industries as varied as construction and IT.

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

• Publisher Historic England
• Publication date 2015
• ISBN 10  1848024223
• ISBN 13  9781848024229
• Binding Paperback
• Number of pages 37
• Editor Historic England

Convert currency

Shipping: FREE Within U.S.A.

Add to basket

Top Search Results from the AbeBooks Marketplace

Management of research projects in the historic environment: morphe project manger's guide (historic england guidance).

Seller: GF Books, Inc. , Hawthorne, CA, U.S.A.

(5-star seller) Seller rating 5 out of 5 stars

Condition: New. Book is in NEW condition. 0.34. Seller Inventory # 1848024223-2-1

Contact seller

Quantity: 1 available

Seller: Book Deals , Tucson, AZ, U.S.A.

Condition: New. New! This book is in the same immaculate condition as when it was published 0.34. Seller Inventory # 353-1848024223-new

Management of Research Projects in the Historic Environment: Morphe Project Manger's Guide

Seller: Revaluation Books , Exeter, United Kingdom

Paperback. Condition: Brand New. 37 pages. 11.00x8.27x0.10 inches. In Stock. Seller Inventory # zk1848024223

Condition: Fair. Acceptable/Fair condition. Book is worn, but the pages are complete, and the text is legible. Has wear to binding and pages, may be ex-library. 0.34. Seller Inventory # 353-1848024223-acp

Condition: Fine. Like New condition. Great condition, but not exactly fully crisp. The book may have been opened and read, but there are no defects to the book, jacket or pages. 0.34. Seller Inventory # 353-1848024223-lkn

Seller: Books Unplugged , Amherst, NY, U.S.A.

Condition: Good. Buy with confidence! Book is in good condition with minor wear to the pages, binding, and minor marks within 0.34. Seller Inventory # bk1848024223xvz189zvxgdd

Condition: Very Good. Book is in Used-VeryGood condition. Pages and cover are clean and intact. Used items may not include supplementary materials such as CDs or access codes. May show signs of minor shelf wear and contain very limited notes and highlighting. 0.34. Seller Inventory # 1848024223-2-3

Condition: Very Good. Very Good condition. Shows only minor signs of wear, and very minimal markings inside (if any). 0.34. Seller Inventory # 353-1848024223-vrg

Applied Historical Methods for the Environment

Environmental scholars from across the spectrum of quantitative and qualitative methodologies make regular use of historical sources: to estimate historical populations for studies of endangered species listings, trace energy demand, explore the economic impacts of climate change, restore and preserve ecological features, debate climate impacts, and report trends in emissions, pollution, land conversion, and water use.  Yet historians too rarely engaged in these practical applications of their methods. Our consortium will meet monthly to critique, explore, and develop methods for applying archival and collections research as well as historiographical analysis to projects in environmental policy, law, and economics. How can historians contribute a more robust and critical analysis of historical sources in order to forward major environmental debates? We will explore the methods that historians can contribute to environmental problem solving and critique the limits of projects that rely on historical sources for data analysis.  We will question the role of historical methods in reproducing environmental narratives within the context of empirical, predictive, and mathematical methodologies. Sessions will explore peer-reviewed publications to examine the diverse uses of historical sources for qualitative and quantitative research. Primary source analysis will focus on the historical manuscripts, rare books, data, and surveys used in peer-reviewed environmental publications and highlight the integration of archival and historical methods with digital humanities curation, data mining with R, and ArcGIS for spatial analysis. Presentations of original environmental reconstructions, narrative analysis, designs, and data projects are also welcome.

Please set your timezone at https://www.chstm.org/user

Consortium Respectful Behavior Policy

Participants at Consortium activities will treat each other with respect and consideration to create a collegial, inclusive, and professional environment that is free from any form of discrimination, harassment, or retaliation.

Participants will avoid any inappropriate actions or statements based on individual characteristics such as age, race, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, marital status, nationality, political affiliation, ability status, educational background, or any other characteristic protected by law. Disruptive or harassing behavior of any kind will not be tolerated. Harassment includes but is not limited to inappropriate or intimidating behavior and language, unwelcome jokes or comments, unwanted touching or attention, offensive images, photography without permission, and stalking.

Participants may send reports or concerns about violations of this policy to [email protected] .

Upcoming Meetings

There are no currently scheduled upcoming events.

Past Meetings

  Postponed! collection<>ecologies with  Dominik Hünniger, University of Hamburg   The collection<>ecologies research collective is a collaboration of an international group of scholars and artists interested in collections, covering a wide array of specialties and professions. Our group was born in 2020 and we created a place for discussing the intersections of the history of collections, material culture, environmental humanities, (historical) ecology and the material history of the sciences and knowledge.   From an environmental history & humanities perspective, informed by a decolonial approach, we would like to explore the circumstances and environments in which organisms and objects were found and created for collections. Both environmental history as well as the history of natural history collections and collecting have gained much momentum and public attention in recent years. Our group wants to explore how historical ecology approaches can be used to analyse the past of collections and how (historical) collections may provide important answers for current ecological issues now and in the future.  https://collecte.hypotheses.org/

  Merging Environmental Conservation and Historic Preservation by Barry Stiefel, Associate Professor at the College of Charleston Historic Preservation & Community Planning Program.     Stiefel's book Sustainable Heritage: Merging Environmental Conservation and Historic Preservation brings together ecological-conservation theory and heritage-preservation theory and explores topics such as Cultural Relationships with Nature, Ecology, Biodiversity, Energy, Resource Systems, and the Integration of Biodiversity into the Built Environment Rehabilitation Practice.  His current work is titled Reconciling Heritage and Sustainability in Canadian Conservation Higher Education.  This paper pushes the reader to think critically about sustainability as our actions as educators may not be the same as our words (hence the reconciliation).  His final project “Historic Sights and Sounds Long Gone: Ecological Reflections on the College of Charleston’s Campus,” uses the College of Charleston as a case study to demonstrate how the historic campus founded 1770 can never be what it originally was. The the Live Oak trees dripping with Spanish moss are a historical fiction that was developed in more recent decades based on stereotypes about the South. The original American Elm trees were wiped out on campus by Dutch Elm disease.  Now an endangered species, the Dutch Elm trees were also roosts for passing flocks of 200-300 Carolina parakeets, which have also gone extinct. Thus, we cannot see or hear what the campus was originally like because of the ecological damage. 

No Meeting. 

  Historical Methods for Environmental Baselines with   Thomas Lekan and Carol Boggs, University of South Carolina and Loren McClenachan, University of Victoria   How have historical methods supported the reconstruction of populations, community structures, and landscape features?  Environmental baselines serve as reference points for restoration, conservation, and policy efforts, and our January session will call into question the best practices for  historical research projects that stand to impact species survival, climate change resiliency, and the integrity of ecosystems.   Our first speaker, Loren McClenachan, asks how historians can better partner with scientists to develop rigorous archival and applied methods to support understandings of environmental change.  As the Canada Research Chair of Environmental Studies at the University of Victoria, McClenachan specializes in the development of historical baselines of for marine animals, including marine fish, turtles, and mammals.  Her papers rely heavily on secondary sources and also engage with historical photographs, newspaper articles, and restaurant menus to document and quantify historical change. These results have links to marine conservation and management, and her work also addresses the implications of and pathways for using historical data in policy contexts.   Our second speaker, Thomas Lekan, is Professor of History and Associate Professor of Earth, Ocean & Environment at the University of South Carolina.  As a fellow at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin, Lekan advised the group "Baselining Nature" and wrote the introduction for the subsequent special issue of  E Nature and Space.   Lekan will team up with his colleague Carol Boggs, who focuses on the conservation biology of native butterflies.  As Professor of Biological Sciences at the University of South Carolina, Boggs uses historical documents as data sets and has co-taught courses on the intersection of historical methods and conservation biology.    

  Historic Performances: Uncovering the intangible heritage of historic environmental practices by Henrik Schoenefeldt, Professor for Sustainability in Architectural Heritage, University of Kent, UK   and   Dr. Reid Goes to Liverpool   by Vidar Lerum, Associate Professor Emeritus, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign    Building on his research of the last 15 years, Prof. Schoenefeldt will explore how a new and more critical understanding can be gained through the study of historic experiences of technologies. The focus of much research on the history of environmental design in architecture has been on the physical technology. The study of technology alone, however, only provides a limited understanding of the nature of historic approaches to environmental control. Using the Houses of Parliament as a case study, Prof. Schoenefeld will speak on the concept of a 'post-occupancy history' of architecture (PoH). Derived from the modern phrase 'post-occupancy evaluation,' post-occupancy history is concerned with the study of historic experiences of buildings in use as well as the study of historic methods of building management and evaluation. In this talk Prof. Schoenefeldt argues that historic research can provide an instrument to reconstruct historic engagements with the performance of buildings, taking into account the role of users, operating staff and scientists.       Dr. Lerum’s talk will delve into the “archeology of historical and contemporary buildings.” Inspired by Michel Foucault’s work on the Archeology of Knowledge and the Discourse on Language (1969), his research centers on the assessed performance of built and actively used objects of architectural design.  For example, at the age of 22, the young architect Harvey Lonsdale Elmes found himself the winner of an architecture competition for St George’s Hall in Liverpool, a large and prestigious project for a civic building in the rising maritime mercantile city in the north-west. Elmes’ competition entry was chosen as the winner from among 75 submissions. In addition to building a new grand concert hall, the Liverpool Corporation also saw the need to build Courts of Assize. The competition for this project was again won by Elmes, this time competing with 88 other entrants. It is in this setting that Harvey Lonsdale Elmes went to see Dr. David Boswell Reid. The young architect was eager to learn about Dr. Reid’s experiments with heating and ventilation. He followed closely as the work at the temporary House of Commons progressed and he visited Dr. Reid’s testing facilities at his chemistry laboratory, which at this time had been expanded into a research facility for experimental studies of the movement of air and smoke under changing environmental conditions (Reid, 1855).  Using photographs, drawings, sections, plans and diagrams which are painstakingly redrawn for consistency and clarity, Lerum will compare works of architecture noted in his book  Sustainable Bulding Design:  Learning from Nineteenth-century Innovations .  He will emphasize on the artistry of the masters of architecture who came before.   Access readings here or download the attached ZIP file:   https://uchicago.box.com/s/r9r5bhyk2xky0icidg8zap33it1a62q9    

Founded immediately in the wake of the election of Donald Trump, the Environmental Data and Governance Initiative (EDGI) brought together scholars, including several historians, who sought to ply their professional skills collectively against the Trump assault on the nation's environmental agencies and laws. A co-founder of the group, Chris Sellers, Professor of History at Stony Brook University, helped inaugurate an oral history interviewing project that elevated the voices and experiences of an EPA whose staff had come "under siege." This and other EDGI initiatives successfully drew media attention while also leading to prominent academic articles and other digital initiatives. Sellers will also speak about the Environmental History Action Collaborative, an initiative born out of members of the American Society for Environmental History that eventually found a home within EDGI.

Request group membership

Advertisement

Agnes, Revisited: methods and principles for community-engaged research on historic flood disasters

• Research Article
• Open access
• Published: 11 September 2024

Cite this article

You have full access to this open access article

• Bethany Fitch 1 &
• Andrew Stuhl   ORCID: orcid.org/0009-0003-6364-5893 1  

50 Accesses

Explore all metrics

Stories—and story-tellers—can build resilience. A body of interdisciplinary research demonstrates that personal stories collected and shared in the immediate wake of a flood disaster can improve disaster preparedness and engagement in flood management. This article explores methods and principles for community story-sharing about destructive floods that are not as recent. Agnes, Revisited is a multi-disciplinary, mixed-methods study of the history of Tropical Storm Agnes (1972) in the Susquehanna River Valley (Pennsylvania, United States). “Agnes” was the costliest natural disaster in US history at the time ($3B in 1972; $91B in 2023) and the Susquehanna River Valley withstood catastrophic flooding. Working with partners on and off campus, we wrote an original play based on 48 interviews with storm survivors and archival research on state records, historical images, and historical newspapers. The play both represented a multi-vocal account of Tropical Storm Agnes and catalyzed continued story-sharing about flooding—in the past, present, and future—including an hour-long documentary on Pennsylvania public television and a book with a regional newspaper. This article details the methods we used to devise and execute the play, as well as pursue opportunities for public scholarship that arose because of the play. We highlight seven principles for community engagement that we followed across the project. In support of broader, community-level flood resilience efforts, we encourage scholars to identify anniversaries of historic flood disasters approaching in the next 3 to 5 years and design community-engaged research projects to meet them.

Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.

Introduction

Stories—and story-tellers—can build resilience. A body of interdisciplinary research demonstrates that personal stories collected and shared in the immediate wake of a flood disaster can improve disaster preparedness and engagement in flood management (Casagrande and McIlvaine-Newsad 2010 ; Holmes and Pilkington 2011 ; Garde-Hansen et al. 2017 ; Holmes and Goodall 2017 ; Lakshmi and Sharma 2017 ; Puzyreva and de Vries 2021 ). But what about flood events that are not as recent, yet still within living memory? How can scholars effectively gather storm survivors, collect stories, and create fora for exchanging them? In this article, we explore methods and principles for community-based story-sharing about historic destructive floods.

Our case study is Tropical Storm Agnes (1972), the costliest natural disaster in US history at the time ($3B in 1972; $91B in 2023) (National Weather Service, 2024 ). Like many tropical systems, “Agnes” impacted the Caribbean region and nearly the entire eastern seaboard (see Fig.  1 ). Its most pronounced lasting effects, though, were in the mid-Atlantic. Agnes killed 48 Pennsylvanians and two-thirds of the total property damages across the storm’s entire path came in the Keystone State (Kiner 2020 ). The Susquehanna River Valley—which cuts a Y-shaped path from the Finger Lakes down to the top of Chesapeake Bay—experienced the heaviest rain and the most catastrophic flooding (Schwartz 2017 ).

Source: David Roth, Weather Prediction Center, Camp Springs, Maryland (this image is in the public domain)

Total rainfall from Tropical Storm Agnes. The purple-shaded area—that with the most precipitation from the storm—falls in the Susquehanna River Basin.

To facilitate the commemoration of Agnes’ 50th anniversary in the Susquehanna River Valley, we wrote an original play based on 48 interviews with survivors and archival research on state records, historical images, and historical newspapers. In addition to monologues and photo montages, the show featured dance, toy theater, and songs by local musicians. The cast included students, community leaders, media personalities, and—importantly—survivors of the storm, who also consulted on the script. The play, called Agnes, Revisited , debuted on Zoom in April 2021 to an audience of 252 people, mostly residents of small river towns in the central Susquehanna River Valley. The online recording has been viewed more than 1550 times since.

Agnes, Revisited both represented a multi-vocal story of Tropical Storm Agnes and catalyzed continued story-sharing about the historic flood disaster and flood risk today. During the show, audience members used the Zoom chat to affirm sentiments shared by the actors, provide details of their own experiences with the storm, and note feelings of nostalgia and connection. After the show, in Zoom breakout rooms with other members of the audience and cast, individuals spoke about how Agnes, Revisited helped them appreciate their shared place—the Susquehanna River Valley—and, in one case, helped a person find closure from painful memories of the flood. Over the year after its debut, and leading up to the storm’s 50th anniversary, the play spawned an hour-long documentary on Pennsylvania public television, the commemorative book Agnes: 50 Years Later with regional newspaper The Daily Item , and a collaboration on a website with the Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA).

Our research is motivated by a desire to support climate adaptation by addressing the most prominent climate hazard in the Susquehanna River Valley, flooding. Flooding is the most common natural disaster in the USA (Center for Disease Control and Prevention 2020 ). As flooding has worsened for the eastern USA in recent decades, flood management has shifted from a federal-and-state responsibility to include important roles in planning and risk reduction at the level of the county and municipality (Holmes and Pilkington 2011 ; Garde-Hansen et al. 2017 ; Germano 2019 ; Kneeland 2020 ; Puzyreva and de Vries 2021 ). At the same time, public opinion polling suggests Susquehanna Valley residents deny human-driven climate change at rates higher than average for Pennsylvania and the USA (Yale Program on Climate Change Communication 2022 ). Our research design incorporated these conditions while building from the successes of similar public environmental humanities projects focused on flood stories (Casagrande and McIlvaine-Newsad 2010 ; Holmes and Pilkington 2011 ; Hall 2014 ; Garde-Hansen et al. 2017 ; Holmes and Goodall 2017 ; Germano 2019 ; Puzyreva and de Vries 2021 ). At each step, we sought to uplift the voices of the everyday residents whose flood stories we collected and foster connections between storm survivors and flood managers in the Susquehanna Valley.

In other articles in preparation, we present the personal flood stories we have collected, analyze the themes within them, and connect this thematic analysis to deeper environmental histories of flooding and flood management, on the Susquehanna and beyond. Here, we only gesture to these topics as we bring into focus on the methods and principles we have used to carry out community-inclusive, multi-vocal historical research. We begin by reviewing existing scholarly literature on the positive outcomes of story-sharing for flood resilience, as well as best practices for engaging research participants in collecting and representing flood memories. We then introduce the reader to Tropical Storm Agnes (1972) and the epicenter of the storm’s damage, the Susquehanna River Valley. We review how Tropical Storm Agnes has been remembered, which provides a geographical focus for our research in small river-towns, whose stories have not been regularly included in enduring public memory. The bulk of the article details the research methods we used to devise and execute the play, as well as the opportunities for research and community engagement that arose because of the play. We highlight seven principles for community engagement that we followed to make decisions across the project. By offering this behind-the-scenes examination of Agnes, Revisited , we hope our work can be lifted out of the contexts of Tropical Storm Agnes by scholars interested in similar research on other historic flood disasters.

The power of stories from everyday residents in flood management

Anthropogenic-driven climate change is worsening flood hazards, especially in the eastern United States (FEMA 2023 ). Climate scientists and governmental weather officials have observed over the last half century more frequent and intense rainfall events east of the Mississippi River (Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection 2023 ). In addition, tropical storm systems are carrying more moisture and appear to be making landfall on the eastern seaboard of North America more regularly. These trends are expected to accelerate through the middle of the twenty-first century (Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection 2021 ).

As the flooding hazard has worsened for the eastern USA in recent decades, flood management has evolved. Since the 1970s, flood-related policies in the USA, as well as the UK, have placed more emphasis on the careful planning of upstream land uses to manage runoff and reduce flood risks, while de-emphasizing the creation of new flood defense structures like dams or levees (Puzyreva and de Vries 2021 ). This trend has resulted in a shift of responsibilities for flood preparation, flood management, and flood response to individual landowners, municipal and county officials, and emergency management institutions at the community scale (Holmes and Pilkington 2011 ; Garde-Hansen et al. 2017 ; Germano 2019 ; Kneeland 2020 ).

Given these localized dimensions of contemporary flood management, as well as the projected increase in the severity and likelihood of flooding, researchers have sought methods to build flood resilience with community members and relevant organizations. Humanists—historians, literary scholars, philosophers, and more—have led interdisciplinary teams to explore storytelling as a tool to better understand the human dimensions of flooding—particularly how a community prepares for and responds to flood disasters (Casagrande and McIlvaine-Newsad 2010 ; Holmes and Pilkington 2011 ; Garde-Hansen et al. 2017 ; Holmes and Goodall 2017 ; Lakshmi and Sharma 2017 ; Puzyreva and de Vries 2021 ). Working across a variety of geographical locations and cultural settings, these research projects shared an important feature in that their community case studies had each experienced a catastrophic flood within the 5 years prior to the initiation of the research.

The lessons from this research are clear: flooding disasters, like other extreme weather events, produce rifts and shifts in the social fabric of a community. In the aftermath of a flood, as community members clean up homes and piece their lives back together, they can also chart new directions for themselves in economic development, settlement patterns, and personal and collective identities. Researchers have found that stories about flood disasters, collected and shared in a group setting soon after the event, have a range of positive outcomes for members of flood-prone communities. These include greater social cohesion, heightened awareness of the potential and extent of flooding, and increased levels of preparation for individuals and community organizations alike (Puzyreva and de Vries 2021 ). Indeed, researchers from multiple disciplines agree that commonly shared flood histories are one of the core factors influencing sustained community engagement in flood management (Casagrande and McIlvaine-Newsad 2010 ; Holmes and Pilkington 2011 ; Hall 2014 ; Garde-Hansen et al. 2017 ; Holmes and Goodall 2017 ; Germano 2019 ).

The research on story-sharing in post-flood communities is also explicit about best methodological practices for this work. Researchers must collaborate with policy-makers and local residents, devise methods to explore a range of resident perspectives on flooding, and foster community ownership of “flood materialization/storytelling” (Garde-Hansen et al. 2017 ). These orientations toward real-world issues, community-university partnerships, and knowledge co-creation and shared authority align with insights from critical community-engaged scholarship and community-based participatory research (Gordon da Cruz 2018 ; Wallerstein et al. 2020 ). Reciprocity, the practice of exchanging with community partners for mutual benefit, is a fundamental consideration when pursuing this kind of story-based, applied, community-centered environmental humanities work (Hall 2014 ; Gottschalk Druschke et al. 2022 ; Gianquitto and LaFauci 2022 ). Reciprocity requires the researcher to “slow down, do work repeatedly, [and] adapt over time” (Gottschalk Druschke et al. 2022 ). It takes more time and consideration to build relationships in this fashion than in other models of research, where communities are not intimately involved in design, data collection, analysis, or application (Stoecker 2012 ). Commitments to inclusion, participation, and reciprocity help researchers locate, hear, and understand multi-vocal perspectives of flood-prone communities—including the heterogenous experiences within municipalities—rather than just a few, dominant narratives (Puzyreva and de Vries 2021 ). At the same time, collaborating with community members and partners to move from story collection to story-sharing can make possible an “infrastructure that support[s] whatever the community want[s] to explore” (Gottschalk Druschke et al. 2022 ). Indeed, in community-engaged scholarship, cycles of reflection and action can strengthen internal power-sharing and capacity to reach locally identified goals (Wallerstein et al. 2020 ).

These dynamics among researchers, everyday residents, and personal accounts are heightened because of the ways public flood history is often presented by meteorologists, engineers, and emergency management personnel. Narrating floods as chronological, linear, and “independent of social life,” official public histories implicitly downplay the importance of everyday people’s knowledge and experiences in ecological contexts (Puzyreva and de Vries, p 2). As Katie Holmes and Heather Goodall ( 2017 ) note, oral histories of past environmental events help those responsible for disaster and flood management understand the ways people’s relationships with environments change over time and inform the present moment. Residents of flood-prone communities maintain personal archives of oral and visual history that represent the “materialization” of flood memories that are often overlooked, ignored, or unknown until given an opportunity to surface (Garde-Hansen et al. 2017 ; Gottschalk Druschke et al. 2022 ). Thus, when resource managers, elected officials, regulators, and other professionals are invited to listen to perspectives on the environmental past from citizens, information that may not otherwise be accessible can be retrieved, preserved, appreciated, and applied (Hall 2014 ). Indeed, oral history and story-sharing have emerged over time as crucial methods in post-flood recovery to “bring down barriers between experts and non-experts” (Holmes and Pilkington 2011 ).

The power of flood stories, story-sharing, and flood history in these regards suggested to us a productive line of inquiry for humanists interested in historic flooding, as well as those who work at the community level on any climate hazard. As we will explain below, it was clear to us that residents in flood-prone communities of the Susquehanna Valley wanted to explore their experiences with Tropical Storm Agnes (1972), especially with the storm’s 50th anniversary approaching. This raised the question: how can scholars achieve the same kind of participatory and multi-vocal historical research with flood disasters that are not recent, but rather on the edge of living memory?

Tropical Storm Agnes and its epicenter, the Susquehanna River basin

To explore this question, we turn to the history and legacies of Tropical Storm Agnes (1972). Agnes remains one of the most intense and destructive weather events in North American history. Between June 19 and June 24, 1972, the storm dropped several inches of rain across much of the eastern seaboard, from south Florida to upstate New York (see Fig.  1 ). Tom Horton, a longtime environmental journalist with The Baltimore Sun, noted that “never before in eastern North America had a storm rained so hard across so many thousands of square miles” ( 2012 ). Geomorphological analysis on Agnes has confirmed its place in the geological record. Peak flows in affected tributaries across the Mid-Atlantic set many records that have yet to be broken and sediment transport from the storm to the Chesapeake Bay pushed further downstream than any other storm since at least 1771 (Bailey et al. 1975 ; Toomey et al. 2019 ).

North Central Pennsylvania and the southern tier region of New York were especially hard-hit. Where parts of eastern Pennsylvania and New Jersey received 3–6 inches of rain from the storm, much of the area north and south of Wilkes-Barre received 10 to 15 inches of rain (see Fig.  1 ) (Schwartz 2017 ). At Wilkes-Barre, the Susquehanna reached 42.66 ft, which surpassed the existing flood-of-record by 9 ft (Advanced Hydrologic Prediction Service 2024 ). In several locations in the Susquehanna Valley, the flood crested 12 ft or more above the major flood stage (see Fig.  2 ).

Source: Bryant Sell, Stormsell Weather (permission received on 4/12/23 via email)

Water level above major flood stage during Tropical Storm Agnes. Dark green circles indicate locations where floods crested more than 12 ft above major flood stage.

The Susquehanna Valley is flood-prone for several reasons. According to the Susquehanna River Basin Commission, the mainstem of the river has experienced 14 major floods since 1810. The Commission explains the regularity of flooding as a function of the basin’s “topography, geology and nearly 49,000 miles of waterways” as well as a mid-Atlantic climate that can bring inundations from heavy snowfall, thunderstorms, and tropical systems (Susquehanna River Basin  n.d. ). Euro-American colonization in the nineteenth century also set the stage for widespread, enduring flood risk. Colonists targeted Indigenous land clearings on riverbanks for forts and settlements to trade with Indigenous groups who occupied those locations because of their ecological abundance, as well as to use the Susquehanna to travel and transport goods out of the region (Stranahan 1995 ; Minderhout 2013 ). These historical choices meant that, at the time of Tropical Storm Agnes, the vast majority of small municipalities in Pennsylvania were situated in the floodplain (Kury 2011 ; McLaughlin 2022 ). This remains true today as well, presenting the central challenge of climate change adaptation.

Indeed, flood protection measures put in place in the first half of the twentieth century became liabilities during the Agnes flood. The case of Wilkes-Barre is telling. In 1940, the Army Corps of Engineers built a levee system along the city’s riverfront as a response to a flood disaster in 1936. This event was still in living memory at the time of Agnes and exists in the far reaches of living memory today. Floods from Agnes overtopped the barriers in Wilkes-Barre that at one time were thought to ensure protection (Lyudmilov 2010 ). The Army Corps of Engineers calculated more than $2B in losses from Agnes in the Susquehanna River Basin in 1975 dollars ($61B in 2023) (National Weather Service, 2024 ). This total accounted for more than two-thirds of the financial impact across Agnes’ entire trajectory. The Pennsylvania Department of Community Affairs estimated that 40% of Agnes’ damage in the state was located on properties supposedly protected by flood control structures (Hydeman to Wilcox  1973 ). Wilkes-Barre alone suffered $500 M in damages ($1.5B in 2023), the most of any settlement in Agnes’ path (Susquehanna River Basin 2018 ).

These figures only hint at incredible human suffering and loss: of loved ones, livelihood, homes, family heirlooms, and more (see Fig.  3 ). Importantly, more than 200,000 Pennsylvanians could not return to their homes after Agnes. Some lived in government-provided mobile homes for more than a year after the storm (FEMA 2022 ).

Source: Donna Albano Meikrantz (permission received via Facebook Messenger on 05/06/2023)

On Charles Street in downtown Wilkes-Barre, PA, as with many other Susquehanna River towns, historic levels of flooding from Tropical Storm Agnes rose to the second floor of homes. When floodwaters receded, they left belongings and streets covered in mud and debris.

Memorialization of Tropical Storm Aagnes in Pennsylvania

In part because of the pronounced damages in Wilkes-Barre and Harrisburg, these cities and their surrounding metropolitan areas—the Wyoming Valley and the Capitol regions, respectively—became focal points in the enduring public memory of Agnes. As a result, the broader historical narrative about Tropical Storm Agnes is missing accounts from hundreds of small towns (population 1000 to 10,000) that were also transformed by this storm. These dynamics informed how and why we focused on small river towns in our community engagement.

In 1972, Wilkes-Barre was a major media center for a large geographic area, providing the only television news stations stretching as far north as the New York border and as far south as Lewistown, Pennsylvania (WNEP 2023 ). Scenes from downtown Wilkes-Barre inundated by Tropical Storm Agnes were broadcast on televisions across the USA on NBC Nightly News and other major channels (MyTwinTiers.com 2022 ). These efforts in the days during the storm and immediately after helped sustain Wilkes-Barre as the main actor of the story of Agnes over the ensuing decades, even as the story shifted from the impact of the storm to initiatives to recover and redevelop after Agnes. Initial footage displaying the storm’s destruction was replayed and repackaged for anniversary specials by television news stations in Wilkes-Barre in 1982, 1992, 2002, and 2022 (Tristan 2022 ).

River towns outside of Wilkes-Barre and Wyoming Valley worked to tell the story of Agnes across the end of the twentieth century, too, though without the same attention from national news outlets. Radio newscasters, who performed critical information-sharing for rescue and relief during the storm, shepherded the creation of programs dedicated to looking back at Agnes, understanding its lasting impacts, and cementing it as a touchstone for area audiences (WMLP Radio 1972 ). Similarly, after Agnes, several area newspapers published special editions to commemorate the flood. These publications, often printed on high-quality paper rather than typical newsprint, usually featured a compilation of photographs taken by local reporters and local residents, with detailed captions and only minimal editorializing (The Milton Standard 1972 ; Fulbright 1972 ). In subsequent years, on Agnes’ anniversary, newspapers reserved substantial space to the lingering impacts of the storm in smaller river towns and re-told stories of heroism, death, near-misses, and apparent miracles (The Daily Item and The Danville News  2022 ).

Because of the extensive coverage of Wilkes-Barre and the availability of news and print media in river towns outside of the Wyoming Valley, we focused our study on the experience of Agnes in small settlements in the central Susquehanna River Valley. We define “small” through population: 10,000 inhabitants or fewer at the time of Tropical Storm Agnes. There are dozens of small river towns across the river basin, making Tropical Storm Agnes a decentralized flood disaster. According to archival records of Pennsylvania’s Department of Community Affairs, the damage from Agnes across all towns with fewer than 10,000 people was $269 M (in 1973 dollars). This figure is two times the total from Harrisburg (Flood Recovery Team  1973 ).

We began with an interest in recovering stories from residents who lived within the municipal boundaries of these small towns in advance of the 50th anniversary of the storm in 2022. We wanted to explore how these stories could be applied to flood resilience planning at the municipal, county, and regional levels. Our intention was to help people in these river towns look to the legacies and impacts of Agnes—on people, communities, environments, and flood management policies—to help prepare for changes happening now and in the future. Out of this intent came the name of our project: Agnes, Revisited . Through community-engaged historical research and story-sharing, we are revisiting Agnes through the voices of residents of small river towns, while also examining how Agnes continues to revisit this region (literally and metaphorically) to this day.

Why a play? Origins of Agnes , Revisited and the seven “a” principles

Agnes, Revisited began in the summer of 2018 as a series of informal conversations about the coming 50th anniversary of Tropical Storm Agnes in 2022. The principal investigator has lived in the Susquehanna River Valley since 2013, working as a professor at a liberal arts college situated in a small river town. Between June 2018 and August 2019, he engaged contacts on- and off-campus in Central Pennsylvania in the arena of flood resilience to discuss a possible community-based research project that would use the occasion of the 50th anniversary to draw attention to the topics of flooding, flood history, flood risk, and climate change in the region. Footnote 1 Drawing inspiration from a host of public humanities projects on water and flooding, these initial conversations were selected to highlight interdisciplinarity and community engagement, crossing the boundaries of natural science, social science, the arts, humanities, and their potential uses in education and policy. Footnote 2 From here, the principal investigator wrote two successful grants that funded research over the next 4 years.

These initial conversations emphasized the importance of identifying community partners and nurturing relationships in a reciprocal, deliberate, and participatory fashion. We heard from community leaders that flooding is a persistent concern in Susquehanna River towns (C. Parenzan, personal communication, September 7, 2018). Specifically, members of municipal flood task forces explained that helping residents understand flood risk is a challenge, especially as the river and its tributaries more often than not appear serene (S. Pearson, personal communication, June 28, 2018). We also heard that Tropical Storm Agnes remains a touchstone for those who lived through it, nurturing a deep appreciation for the power of water and the importance of flood forecasting, water management, and emergency planning from the household level up to the state government (B. Hayes, personal communication, September 18, 2018). For newer residents, though, Agnes was a historical event: present and available in local memory, but much less personal (V. Wagner, personal communication, June 19, 2019).

From here, Stuhl formed a project team made of scholars, artists, and community members—all based in the central Susquehanna River Valley—that would help guide the work, including the design of research questions, methods, and planned outcomes. In August 2019, first-year Bucknell University student Bethany Fitch (class of 2023) joined the team as a research fellow for the next 4 years. These kinds of collaborative decision-making relationships are a central facet of community-based, participatory research (Schensul 2020 ). The project team decided to develop a piece of theater based on interviews with survivors of Tropical Storm Agnes and performed by members of Central Pennsylvania river towns, in time for the 49th anniversary of the storm in 2021. The commitment to theater emerged from the shared desire on the project team to create a compelling means of communicating with an audience and moving them toward action. Stories shared or performed publicly will often provide emotional content that a written version of the same story will not. As scholars Tina Gianquitto and Lauren LaFauci put it, sharing experiences and stories in such a public way can move audiences—and story-tellers—“toward the cultural shifts that are necessary for responding to current and impending climate crises” (2021).

Timing the performance with the 49th anniversary was intentional. We wanted to bring community voices into the narratives about Tropical Storm Agnes that would be crafted for the storm’s 50th anniversary. Starting in 2019 and aiming for a 2021 performance allowed the project team to find and engage residents with memories of Agnes, listen to their stories, and work together to develop creative ways to share them. Further, we hoped that gathering an audience to participate in a piece of theater about Tropical Storm Agnes 1 year before its 50th anniversary would open opportunities for community partners and story-tellers to participate in and shape, broader commemorative events likely to be planned by regional newspapers, flood management agencies, and local municipalities. As we will explain further below, this intention did lead to these outcomes.

There were three main areas of activity which proceeded in order: interviews with survivors of Tropical Storm Agnes (Fall 2019–Spring 2021); a series of public events around floods and storytelling (Fall 2020–Spring 2021); and a semester-long artist residency to devise a script and performance based on interviews and shared stories in tandem with two undergraduate courses at Bucknell (Spring 2021). Central to each area of activity was a set of guiding principles developed by theater artist and project team member Gerard Stropnicky, called The Seven “A” Principles (see Table  1 ). As Stropnicky points out, the Seven “A” Principles are not simply about the quality of the art, which can be subjective and culturally specific, but about providing “a framework for planning, making, and assessing work that aims to actually bring changes in attitude, in policy, and positive social change” (G. Stropnicky, personal communication, December 14, 2023).

These principles derive from Stropnicky’s extensive work with story and theater in communities post-stress and post-crisis. He has succeeded in using art to initiate and sustain healing conversations in a variety of places: New Orleans, Harlan County, KY, Tioga County, PA, and the Alebtong District in northern Uganda. He brought his work to Bloomsburg, PA following Tropical Storm Lee in 2011 with Flood Stories and Flood Stories, Too. It was through this lifetime of work that he created the framework of the Seven “A” Principles and discovered their repeated success in community story plays. In 2013, Stopnicky summed up the potential for impact of the (then five) “A’s” for the Network of Ensemble Theaters. “Understanding these [principles],” he wrote, “is a start in looking rigorously at work that strives for meaningful and effective social engagement. These elements are as old as Athens” (Stropnicky 2013 ). Stropnicky joined the Agnes, Revisited project team primarily out of curiosity to observe if the principles could have similar results with stories that were 50 years old.

Discursive frame and data collection

The Seven “A” Principles helped the project team make choices about how to continuously engage residents of Central Pennsylvania. For instance, taking the question of “Audience” seriously—who is this play for?—helped us choose an appropriate discursive frame for our research project. That is to say, we consciously decided to avoid “climate change” as a reference point for our work in interviews and in devising the play. Instead, we focused on the experience of catastrophic flooding from Tropical Storm Agnes. We allowed shared experiences of the storm to inform answers to our interview questions about avoiding similar experiences in the present and future.

A consideration of “Audience” led us in this direction because the communities of Central Pennsylvania at the center of our research are notably conservative, in terms of political ideology. As one example, in the 2020 Presidential election, the three counties that form the geographic focus of our research voted for the Republican candidate at rates of 60–73% (Commonwealth of Pennsylvania 2020 ). While electoral behavior does not necessarily equate to an individual’s stance on climate change, polling data from the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication supports the notion that significant numbers of the region’s residents reject climate science and resist open conversation about climate change’s influence on local flooding hazards. Residents’ belief in global warming in Northumberland, Snyder, and Union counties is 2 to 10 points below the state and national averages (Yale Program on Climate Change Communication 2022 ). Our choice to direct conversation about the most visible and personal climate hazard in our geographic area—flooding—may have helped prevent our interviews and other interactions with community members from regressing into established partisan talking points. Moreover, as described further below, this discursive frame tapped into deeply held memories and feelings about Tropical Storm Agnes that motivated individuals to think about reducing flood risk in the present and future, regardless of political affiliation.

When considering possible interview methods, the project team opted for group interviews in the tradition of “story circles” over individual interviews as the former better embodies principles of “Agency” and “Audience” (Carson 2006 ). In story circles, a facilitator prompts the group with a question and individuals respond in order around the circle without interruption. This method allows participants to get to know other participants and also underscores the ways experiences within the circle resonate or differ (Carson 2006 ). The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in early spring 2020 forced us to adapt this approach. Fortunately, the wide adoption of remote conference technologies at this same time allowed us to follow most of our plans. This appears to have been a common adaptation for many researchers using qualitative methods, and particularly interviews, at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic (Keen et al. 2022 ).

We recruited initial interviews with known contacts and followed the snowball method to expand our number of interviewees (Stoecker 2012 ; Gray 2023 ). We invited folks willing to share a story to contact us via a unique email address or a Google Form, which allowed for both the scheduling of an interview or a typed or recorded story to be sent to us electronically. Further, we recruited additional participants through our public scholarship events, invited lectures, by attending local events whose attendees were likely to be Agnes survivors—like a conference on the Susquehanna River—and by promoting our work in local print and radio media. By far, though, the most successful recruitment method was posting about our project on relevant Facebook groups. Many of these Facebook groups are organized geographically and around local events or history (i.e., one group based in Selinsgrove, PA is called “You Know You Grew Up in Selinsgrove, if…”). One of these groups is specifically for those interested in the history of Tropical Storm Agnes. At the time of our post, this group had more than 19,000 members. The people we met through this group recommended many others who we eventually interviewed.

From all of these methods, the project team conducted 48 semi-structured interviews with Agnes survivors from 13 different river towns in north central Pennsylvania and two in the southern tier region of New York. These interviews ranged from 40 to 150 min and followed a set of questions that were roughly chronological (before, during, and after Tropical Storm Agnes). The authors conducted the majority of the interviews, with other Bucknell University students conducting a handful after training in interview methods and research ethics. We also collected 10 other stories by email and 6 others by Google Form. We followed protocols for “respondent validation” with interview transcripts (Stoecker 2012 ). Each participant retained “Agency” over the content of their testimony. They were given the chance to review their transcript in full and make edits before it could be used in the Agnes, Revisited performance. When we did incorporate transcript material in the performance, we again checked in with participants to ensure their comfort, as well as “Accuracy.”

After posting on Facebook groups about our project, we realized some Agnes survivors preferred to respond with brief anecdotes—especially if our post contained a picture of the storm or its damage in their town. We collected 156 other anecdotes from Facebook posts. Similarly, as area residents learned about our project, some contacted us to share physical materials and photographs they had saved over the last 50 years. We collected more than one hundred photographs from more than two dozen people, representing 8 different river towns in north central Pennsylvania—including a binder of photos maintained by the municipal officials of Lewisburg, PA. We also collected a personal scrapbook from a woman in Montgomery, PA; a private collection of newspaper clippings and publications curated by a former employee of the Dallas Post (Dallas, PA), and many copies of various commemorative publications printed in the first decade after Tropical Storm Agnes from area news outlets. Finally, we made two trips to the Pennsylvania State Archives in Harrisburg, PA in 2021 to consult records from state agencies responsible for the immediate response to Tropical Storm Agnes.

The variety and breadth of sources helped ensure “Authenticity” and “Accuracy” in the devised play. As scholars have shown through post-flood story-sharing work, it is essential that community involvement be coupled with other types of research, like archival work. Such a mixed-method approach helps achieve a comprehensive understanding of the collective or community experience (Garde-Hansen et al. 2017 ). In turn, and as we will discuss immediately below, sharing this research in community fora ensures that learning and memory persist through “inter (vertical) and intra (horizontal) generational” communication (Garde-Hansen et al. 2017 ).

A Zoom-based play for the 49th anniversary of the storm (2021)

Gerard Stropnicky served as a “Story-worker in Residence” during the Spring 2021 semester at Bucknell University. Stropnicky worked with several students from Andrew Stuhl’s course “Community Environmental Projects” to develop the performance based on the interviews and other materials collected. Agnes, Revisited debuted on Zoom on April 22, 2021, to an audience of 252 people. Readers can view a recording of the entire 60-min performance at the link in Online Resource 1. Footnote 3

To promote the event to the audience we had in mind—residents of small rivertowns in and near the central Susquehanna River Valley—we partnered with close to a dozen community organizations. These included our regional United Way, environmental non-profits, media outlets, and the council of governments that leads the central flood resilience initiative in north central Pennsylvania. Here, Zoom may have helped make the event more “Accessible” than it would have been as a staged, in-person performance. Since its debut in April 2021, the recording of Agnes, Revisited —available free online—has been viewed more than 1550 times.

Working with the Seven “A” Principles, and the Zoom format, we devised elements of the piece to accentuate a multi-vocal history. To explore the principle of “Audacity,” we leaned into the opportunities posed by the remote conferencing technology where recorded videos could be shared seamlessly alongside live speech. We incorporated multiple mediums beyond monologues and scenes. These included a choreographed dance about water, puppet theater based on historic photographs of Tropical Storm Agnes, and montages of historical photographs set to music (itself about Tropical Storm Agnes, composed by a musician impacted by the storm) (see Fig.  4 ). For the dance and puppet theater pieces, we collaborated with faculty in Bucknell’s Department of Theatre and Dance and a local videographer. Footnote 4

(L) Dance piece “Flow” performed during Agnes, Revisited by Bucknell University students Katrien Weemaes and Clare McGowan and choreographed by Prof. Kelly Knox (Department of Theatre and Dance, Bucknell). (R) Toy theater “Disaster and Decomposition” created by Orli Maia Bernstein and Lydia Palumbo, with assistance from Sandy Spieler (theater artist) and Prof. Elaine Williams (Department of Theatre and Dance, Bucknell)

We also made choices about the cast to ensure that folks closest to Tropical Storm Agnes and future flooding in central Pennsylvania held “Agency.” Rather than assemble a cast of trained actors or students in the Department of Theatre and Dance, we sought out folks from the community who either lived through Tropical Storm Agnes or who, in 2021, held roles in civic life that were important in disaster preparedness and recovery (see Fig.  4 ). Our cast thus featured several Agnes survivors, a local radio host, a social worker, the director of an environmental non-profit organization, and two candidates for Mayor of a small river town, as well as the students from “Community Environmental Projects” who helped create the performance. Collaborating with residents to develop and perform Agnes, Revisited helped foster “Authenticity” and “Accuracy” in the stories featured in the play and the overall message of the performance. For example, Agnes survivors Lauri Young and Donna Stuccio not only read portions of their own transcripts as monologues, but they also provided critical feedback on what kinds of stories from the interviews would resonate with the central Pennsylvania communities impacted by the 1972 flood and modern flood risks. One scene in particular involved caskets shooting into the air, with human remains spilling out—which did indeed transpire at the cemetery in Forty Fort, PA during Tropical Storm Agnes. This horrific turn of events was the result of swelling ground pressure from rising floodwaters. Some faculty and students on the cast thought this might be too morbid or dark for the performance. Lauri and Donna disagreed and expressed strong feelings that this event was crucial to understanding the lasting traumatic impact of Tropical Storm Agnes (Fig.  5 ).

Still photo from Agnes, Revisited featuring cast member Kendy Alvarez, who later became Mayor of Lewisburg. Involving community leaders and storm survivors as cast members helped ensure local agency in shaping the meaning of Tropical Storm Agnes for today

Moreover, we considered the debut of Agnes, Revisited on Zoom not only as a presentation of survivor stories and archival research but also as a vehicle for further story-sharing and reciprocal information exchange between residents and those responsible for flood management. We developed a full hour of programming after the performance ended. The first 20 minutes featured small break-out rooms where audience members could speak with each other and a cast member about the storm, their own experiences with Tropical Storm Agnes, and choices behind the production. The last 40 minutes included presentations by representatives of area flood management agencies, with whom we had formed partnerships, to share information about flood resiliency programs, flood insurance, flood prevention, and ecological restoration. Our hope was that the performance would inspire audience members to stick around to share memories with us and listen to each other. In return, for those who were moved by the event to learn about how to address flooding, we offered a platform for them to connect with local resources and professionals to best prepare, individually and together.

Even before the performance of Agnes, Revisited was complete, we observed how this form of public scholarship affirmed the desire for story-sharing among Agnes survivors and the importance of flood history to a shared sense of place in the Susquehanna Valley. The chat feature on Zoom—where participants could react to the performance in real time—buzzed with activity. Audience members echoed sentiments shared by the actors by recounting their own similar experiences with Tropical Storm Agnes (“I remember all the cans, also at Continental Can.”) or noting how the performance brought them back to the time of the storm (“Still recall the odor of ‘flood mud.’”) Here, Zoom chat provided a channel for the principles of “Audience” and “Agency,” helping emphasize important moments, locations, and themes in the story of Tropical Storm Agnes.

As the performance wrapped up, the Zoom chat allowed for confirmation of decisions around “Authenticity” and “Artistry” in the play. Audience members who lived through Agnes themselves noted how “important and so sensitively done” it was. Folks who had not endured Agnes felt connected in new ways to the people and landscape of central Pennsylvania. One participant, Maria, wrote that Agnes, Revisited was “incredibly effective and moving. It was wonderful to watch people contribute their memories and insights in the chat as the performance unfolded; it was truly a participatory event.” Another participant named John wrote, “It was informative and entertaining, and it was a great vehicle to converse with others and share stories about Tropical Storm Agnes.”

After the performance: continued story-sharing and community engagement

Working with local residents and community partners in these ways to remember Tropical Storm Agnes in advance of the 50th anniversary of the storm had a host of positive outcomes. As we had hoped, opportunities for community engagement, research, story-sharing, and multi-vocal histories of Tropical Storm Agnes emerged during and after the performance. In choosing how to respond to these, we again leaned on the Seven “A” Principles.

Healing, individual memory, and public memory

One particularly touching and pivotal moment of the event came at the conclusion of the post-play small group discussions. As we began to wrap up, we asked participants to drop in the Zoom chat one word that summed up their lasting impressions of the event. The words that filled the screen included “Memories,” “Grateful,” “Shared history,” “Vulnerable,” “Resilience,” and “Thanks for telling our story.” We were about to sign off when one participant raised his hand to speak.

"I guess I didn’t realize how painful these memories were,” he said. He disclosed that he and his family had lost their house in the Agnes flood. Attending the performance, remembering those memories, and sharing them with other audience members—who also live in the region—brought him “a little closure.” This was a powerful statement, which resonated with earlier sentiments shared in the Zoom chat. One participant, a local social worker, had written that “Healing happens in groups, not in isolation.”

The “Agency” of audience participants to both name their own healing and validate it as a product of community struck us. These interactions encouraged us to situate our work in the literature on memory studies and oral history to understand how the methods and principles we chose for community-engaged research on historic flood disasters might be replicated elsewhere. As scholars in those fields have demonstrated, when we remember, we do not just shine a spotlight on a picture of the past. Rather, memories are “newly constructed combining the information stored with the immediate situation.” (Abrams 2016 ; Holmes and Goodall 2017 ). Our interviews and the stories we heard were surely inflected by the moment—marked by the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, social distancing and isolation, political division, and concerns about the future. Indeed, oral historians witnessed a proliferation of projects in the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic expressly to document the historical event, record experiences of isolation, and forge new understandings of community and participatory democracy. The themes of vulnerability, connectedness, resilience, and repair we witnessed in interviews of Tropical Storm Agnes survivors—and in the Zoom chat during the performance—resonate with researchers interviewing Brooklyn residents about the pandemic, for instance (Halley 2020 ).

Oral history, story-sharing, and public scholarship events like Agnes, Revisited remain powerful spaces for understanding people, place, and the future because of these influences, rather than despite them. Since memories are always informed by current contexts, scholars ought not hesitate to explore memories of historic events—floods, and other disasters—5, 10, 15, even 50 years later. In this way, we can track the evolving meaning of those past episodes, while helping connect them to present and future environmental planning. Importantly, how the public memory of a flooding event is recorded and transmitted over time governs how individuals recall their personal experiences with it. As Lynn Abrams writes, oral histories offer “insights into the interplay between the self and society, between past and present and between individual experience and the generalized account” (2016). In our case, when individual survivors shared a feeling or story that was not “typically” associated with Agnes—given the existing “official” memory of the storm in newspaper accounts on the storm’s anniversary—they often hedged or prefaced with “This may not be what you are looking for.” In hearing this hesitancy during interviews, we often responded with encouragement, letting participants know we were interested in all stories, and honoring the ways in which their experiences were unique.

Publicly sharing individual stories that do not fit neatly into accepted, institutional accounts has significant power. In public settings, individual memories can challenge accepted collective memory, create new assemblages of people and organizations who share an interest in flood resilience, and bring urgency to activities like comprehensive planning, disaster management, or even individual flood preparation (Abrams 2016 ; Lakshmi and Sharma 2017 ). As Gottschalk Druschke emphasizes, compiling a historical record of stories from a group connected by place and experience supports community healing as it demands the memories serve to inspire recovery and not only trauma (Gottschalk Druschke et al. 2022 ). Given the experience shared above, this appears to be the case for at least some of the participants in Agnes, Revisited.

As another example, during Agnes, Revisited, we provided an alternative narrative about Tropical Storm Agnes focusing on flood recovery. We wrote a monologue based on the obituary of Evelyn Kim, a Lewisburg citizen who was appointed to the Bull Run Task Force and joined the Lewisburg Planning Commission immediately after Tropical Storm Agnes. Kim helped galvanize community support for floodplain evacuation and wrote the town’s floodplain ordinance. We heard about Kim’s efforts repeatedly in our interviews with storm survivors, though she was not recognized in the existing “official” accounts of public memory. The monologue was positioned in the performance to emphasize the importance of local citizens and local flood management authorities in long-term flood recovery. Previously, the dominant narrative of Agnes in Lewisburg and surrounding towns focused on the heroic efforts during the rescue and relief phases of immediate flood recovery.

Oral historians typically interview flood disaster survivors soon after the event, when survivor experiences have not been fully assimilated into a coherent narrative (Abrams 2016 ). But this is not the case with our research and need not be for others, either. Fifty years from Tropical Storm Agnes, people continue to visit and revisit stories of difficult times. Our research suggested to interviewees that the meaning of Tropical Storm Agnes in 2021, 1 year before its 50th anniversary, was not preordained or set in stone. Moreover, by gathering together to listen to a performance of shared stories—where the performers were themselves local residents and storm survivors—research participants and audience members witnessed firsthand how individual contributions can help shape broader public memory. This is true both in terms of the factual accounts of what happened during Tropical Storm Agnes, as well as what the storm means for people living in central Pennsylvania today.

Additional community engagement, participation, and inclusion, 2021–2022

Agnes, Revisited led to more community engagement, participation, and inclusion in the 12 months after its debut, which coincided with the lead-up to the 50th anniversary of the storm. Perhaps because of the press coverage of the performance, we were approached by several media outlets—regional newspapers and our regional NPR and PBS affiliate—as well as the Federal Emergency Management Administration, as these institutions worked on their own programming and messaging to commemorate Tropical Storm Agnes.

In this work, we kept the question of “Audience”—who is this work for?—at the top of our minds. Residents of small river towns in central Pennsylvania remained our focus. Collaborating with regional newspapers, who have an established online and physical presence, offered an opportunity to share the stories and research we had collected with a larger number of people than we could reach on our own. In the summer of 2021, we began working with Bill Bowman, the managing editor of The Daily Item (Sunbury, PA), on a commemorative 50th anniversary publication. With consent from our research participants, we shared transcripts and contacts of Agnes survivors who lived in nearby small river towns covered by The Daily Item —Lewisburg, Milton, Danville, Northumberland, Sunbury, and Selinsgrove, PA. Bowman and his reporting staff followed up with these story-tellers, choosing several to profile in the publication with longer interviews and professional photographs. We also compiled statistics on flood damage and state-led flood recovery efforts based on our archival work in the Pennsylvania State Archives. The result was the July 2022 book Agnes, 50 Years Later: The Effects of Hurricane Agnes on the Central Susquehanna Valley and its People ( The Daily Item and the Danville News, 2022 ). In similar ways, we shared contacts, transcripts, recordings, and research with the Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA) and our regional NPR and PBS affiliate, WVIA, over the fall of 2021 and spring of 2022. A FEMA website dedicated to “Agnes stories” features several of the interviews we conducted (Silver Jackets 2022 ). WVIA’s 60-min documentary Agnes 50: Life After the Flood highlights three story-tellers in three small river towns we engaged between 2019 and 2021 (WVIA 2022 ).

Our most significant community engagement after the 2021 performance of Agnes, Revisited took place in Lewisburg, PA. Working with Taylor Lightman, the Director of Lewisburg Neighborhoods, a community development organization, we organized a series of events designed to raise awareness about flood history and flood management among current elected officials and flood managers in Lewisburg. Again, we kept “Agency” front and center. We held a commemorative lunch where we recognized dozens of area residents who were intimately involved in the response to Tropical Storm Agnes in Lewisburg over the years. Attendees included members of the local police and fire detachments who were integral to rescue and relief efforts; local citizen volunteers and elected officials who formed initial task forces to survey damage and seek state funding for redevelopment; and landscape architects and community planners working for regional government bodies who developed a long-term vision for converting floodplain uses from commercial and residential buildings into public parks. Members of Evelyn Kim’s family accepted our invitation to attend and we honored Kim and her legacy. Directly after the lunch, participants enjoyed the screening of the WVIA film Agnes 50: Life After the Flood , which itself was followed by a Q&A session with a FEMA official, a climate scientist from nearby Pennsylvania State University, the Vice President of the Pennsylvania State Association of Floodplain Managers, and a member of our project team. During the Q&A, the Mayor of Lewisburg made a proclamation that June 24 would become “Agnes Day,” a day that recognizes and nurtures “public safety, community service, volunteerism, neighborliness, civic engagement, respect for nature, preparedness, forward-thinking, and the need for flood resilience” (Borough of Lewisburg 2022 ).

In these ways, our public scholarship built on itself over time, deployed the Seven “A” Principles to make decisions about community participation and inclusion, and infused a multi-vocal history into revised public memories and meanings of Tropical Storm Agnes on its 50th anniversary. Indicative of all these relations, the Mayor of Lewisburg who declared “Agnes Day”—Kendy Alvarez—was a cast member in the April 2021 performance of Agnes, Revisited.

A growing body of scholarship has documented how story-sharing in the immediate wake of a flood builds social cohesion, raises individual awareness about flooding, and engenders more meaningful participation in flood management (Casagrande and McIlvaine-Newsad  2010 ; Holmes and Pilkington 2011 ; Garde-Hansen et al. 2017 ; Holmes and Goodall 2017 ; Lakshmi and Sharma 2017 ; Puzyreva and de Vries 2021 ). Inspired by this work, our project asked how historians could effectively gather story-tellers and stories about destructive floods from the past that sit on the edge of living memory.

The methods and principles we followed in this project helped create multiple fora through which survivors of Tropical Storm Agnes (1972) could share their memories, hear those from neighbors in the Susquehanna River Valley, and connect with officials holding responsibility for flood management. Together, we introduced a range of overlooked or unheard resident perspectives on Agnes into public memory. Through performances, commemorative books, a documentary, a website, and special community events, we affirmed this multi-vocal history as well as the storm’s enduring meaning today and for the future. We also helped connect storm survivors and current residents of flood-prone river towns in the Susquehanna Valley with flood managers in the region, allowing for the exchange of information about flooding and flood resilience. This is significant, not only for central Pennsylvania, but also for flood-prone communities elsewhere, because it suggests flood disasters from the less recent past can serve as touchstones for community identity, sense of place, and understanding of flood risk today.

Current political, social, and ecological conditions make this kind of humanistic, applied inquiry into past hazards possible, relevant, and critical. The localization of flood management since the 1970s means counties and municipalities now have important responsibilities for stormwater management, floodplain development, and flood protection. That is to say, many of our neighbors who have been impacted by historic flood disasters are likely in positions of authority around flood resilience. At the same time, human-induced climate change is worsening flood hazards for locations across the eastern USA. To engage local residents and flood managers in the important work of flood management and adaptation, we offer the Seven “A” Principles. At each step of the research and collaboration, we invite you to refer to the principles as a guide: to ensure those closest to the issue hold power; to identify and hone in on the audience for your work; to develop authentic and accurate stories; and to share them with artistry, accessibility, and audacity.

We are hopeful and curious to see how scholars apply the lessons we have learned in this work to historic flood disasters in other contexts. In addition to the methods and principles we followed, we also want to underscore the timing of our project. The coming 50th anniversary of Tropical Storm Agnes galvanized community interest and media attention. We would not expect to have had such broad participation in our work if the flood we sought to commemorate did not have a signature anniversary approaching. We encourage scholars to identify the “big anniversaries” of historic disasters approaching in the next 3 to 5 years, and design community-engaged, multi-vocal research projects to meet them.

Every flood-prone community has legendary, devastating floods. Many of these are within living memory. With the methods and principles we have outlined here, scholars, survivors, and flood managers have tools to reflect on this past together and use these reflections to update existing public memories of historic disasters. Such collaborations can have a range of positive outcomes, from a deepened sense of place to new understandings of flood risk and greater connections between residents and flood managers. These outcomes are important and timely, especially as we face a future where increased catastrophic flooding is more likely to occur.

These contacts included the chair of the Flood Task Force of Lewisburg, Pennsylvania (Sam Pearson); the director of Bucknell University’s Place Studies Program (Dr. Shaunna Barnhart); the Middle Susquehanna Riverkeeper at the time (Carol Parenzan); the director of Bucknell University’s Watershed Sciences and Engineering Program (Dr. Ben Hayes); an expert in engineering and disaster management (Dr. Terri Norton); the Bucknell faculty fellow in the Office of Civic Engagement (Dr. Coralynn Davis); a geographer with three-decades of fieldwork and scholarship on central Pennsylvania communities (Dr. Ben Marsh); an Environmental Science teacher at the Lewisburg High School (Van Wagner); the Educational Programming Coordinator for the Weis Center for the Performing Arts (Rachel Martine); a professor of English at Susquehanna University in nearby Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania and practitioner of community theater (Dr. Harvey Edwards); a theater artist based in Sunbury, Pennsylvania (Peterson Toscano); and a community theater artist based in nearby Danville, Pennsylvania (Gerard Stropnicky).

These include the Living Flood Histories Network, the “Changing Currents” project from Illinois Humanities, “Water Matters” from The Smithsonian Institute, and the Water and City Symposium from Vrije Universiteit.

Note that the performance starts around the 10:00 min mark of the recording. Recording can be found at https://mediaspace.bucknell.edu/media/1_4qyg6mw8

We are grateful to Dr. Elaine Williams (Theatre and Dance, Bucknell), Sandy Spieler (Visual Artist), and Maxwell Wilhem (videographer, Primrose Media) for their collaboration, creativity, and support.

Abrams L (2016) Oral history theory . Routledge & CRC Press

Advanced Hydrologic Prediction Service (2024) Susquehanna River at Wilkes Barre: historic crests. Retrieved May 24, 2024, from https://water.weather.gov/ahps2/hydrograph.php?gage=wbrp1&wfo=bgm

Bailey JF, Patterson JL, Paulhus JLH (1975) Hurricane Agnes rainfall and floods, June-July 1972. United States Geological Survey. Geological Survey Professional Paper 924. United States Government Printing Office, Washington

Borough of Lewisburg (2022, July). Agnes Day Proclamation. Retrieved May 25, 2024, from https://www.lewisburgborough.org/wp-content/uploads/Agnes-Day-Proclamation-2022.pdf

Carson J (2006) Spider Speculations: A Physics and Biophysics of Storytelling . New York, New York: Theatre Communications Group.

Casagrande DG and McIlvaine-Newsad H (2010) Slow road to recovery: small rural community resilience in Illinois after the Mississippi River floods of 2008. Retrieved April 11, 2023, from https://www.academia.edu/12282018/Slow_Road_to_Recovery_Small_Rural_community_Resilience_in_Illinois_after_the_Mississippi_Floods_of_2008

Center for Disease Control and Prevention (2020) Precipitation extremes: heavy rainfall, flooding, and droughts. Retrieved April 11, 2023 from https://www.cdc.gov/climateandhealth/effects/precipitation_extremes.htm

Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (2020) 2020 Presidential Election: official results, statewide. Retrieved May 4, 2023 from: https://www.electionreturns.pa.gov/General/SummaryResults?ElectionID=83&ElectionType=G&IsActive=0#

Federal Emergency Management Agency (2022) Reflecting on hurricane Agnes 50 years later. Retrieved April 11, 2023, from https://www.fema.gov/press-release/20220607/reflecting-hurricane-agnes-50-years-later

Federal Emergency Management Agency (2023) FEMA and the changing climate | FEMA.gov. Retrieved April 11, 2023, from https://www.fema.gov/fact-sheet/fema-and-changing-climate

Flood Recovery Team (1973) Pennsylvania Department of Community Affairs. Pennsylvania summary preliminary rural damage appraisal - Hurricane Agnes (Farm Losses and Losses in Communities of 10,000 or less). Pennsylvania State Archives, Group RG-034-A, Series RG-034-A-31, Carton 16, Folder: Flood Damages Rural Small Business Administration

Fulbright J (1972) Flood Pennsylvania—1972: Collector’s Edition. Timothy E, Euker and David Berner

Google Scholar  

Garde-Hansen J, McEwen L, Holmes A, Jones O (2017) Sustainable flood memory: remembering as resilience. Memory Studies 10(4):384–405. https://doi.org/10.1177/1750698016667453

Article   Google Scholar  

Germano N (2019) “A flood of problems” in Michigan: an urban environmental history. Mich Hist Rev 45(1):81–107. https://doi.org/10.1353/mhr.2019.0001

Gianquitto T, LaFauci L (2022) A case study in citizen environmental humanities: creating a participatory plant story website. J Environ Studies Sci 12(2):327–340. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13412-021-00744-8

Gordon da Cruz C (2018) Community-engaged scholarship: toward a shared understanding of practice. Rev High Educ 41(2):147–167

Gottschalk Druschke C, Dean T, Higgins M, Beaty M, Henner L, Hosemann R, Meyer J, Sellers B, Widell S, Woser T (2022) Stories from the flood: promoting healing and fostering policy change through storytelling, community literacy, and community-based learning. Community Literacy Journal 16(2):8. Retrieved May 1, 2023, from https://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/communityliteracy/vol16/iss2/35

Gray D (2023) Doing research in the real world. Sage Publications Ltd. Retrieved May 1, 2023, from https://uk.sagepub.com/en-gb/eur/ng-research-in-the-real-world/book248702

Hall A (2014) Environmental History Field Notes 2, 2014. Environmental History. Retrieved May 1, 2023, from https://environmentalhistory.net/field-notes/2014-hall/

Halley Catherine (2020) How to gather the oral histories of COVID-19. JSTOR Daily. Retrieved May 1, 2023, from https://daily.jstor.org/how-to-gather-the-oral-histories-of-covid-19/

Holmes K, Goodall H (2017) Introduction: telling environmental histories. In K. Holmes & H. Goodall (Eds.), Telling Environmental Histories: Intersections of Memory, Narrative and Environment (pp. 1–27). Springer International Publishing. Retrieved May 1, 2023, from https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-63772-3_1

Holmes A, Pilkington M (2011) Storytelling, floods, wildflowers and washlands: oral history in the River Ouse project. Oral History 39(2), 83–94. https://www.jstor.org/stable/41332167

Horton T (2012) Retrospective: the damage caused by hurricane Agnes - Washingtonian. Retrieved May 1, 2023, from https://www.washingtonian.com/2012/06/19/deluge/

Hydeman AL to William Wilcox Jr (1973) Group RG-034-A, Series RG-034-A-31, Carton 2, Flood Plain Zoning Folder. Pennsylvania State Archives

Jean Schensul (2020) Community based research partnerships for co-constructing participatory forms of social justice research and action. Tracce Urbane 8(2020):42–68

Keen S, Lomeli-Rodriguez M, Joffe H (2022) From challenge to opportunity: virtual qualitative research during COVID-19 and beyond. Int J Qual Methods 21:16094069221105076. https://doi.org/10.1177/16094069221105075

Kiner D (2020) ‘A cruel blow’: tropical storm Agnes devastated Pa. in 1972. Pennlive. Retrieved May 1, 2023, from https://www.pennlive.com/life/2020/06/a-cruel-blow-tropical-storm-agnes-devastated-pa-in-1972.html

Kneeland T (2020) Playing politics with natural disaster: hurricane Agnes, the 1972 Election, and the Origins of FEMA. Cornell University Press

Book   Google Scholar  

Kury FL (2011) Clean Politics, Clean Streams: a Legislative Autobiography and Reflections. Bethlehem, PA: Lehigh University Press.

Lakshmi R, Sharma S (2017) Building a safe space for unsafe memories: the remember Bhopal Museum. In K. Holmes & H. Goodall (Eds.), Telling Environmental Histories: Intersections of Memory, Narrative and Environment (pp. 133–152). Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-63772-3_6

Lyudmilov Yevgenia (2010) Cities under water, under siege: hurricane Agnes. Retrieved May 24, 2024, from https://pabook.libraries.psu.edu/literary-cultural-heritage-map-pa/feature-articles/cities-under-water-under-siege-hurricane-agnes

McLaughlin Alexandra (2022) Reviving the ‘lost’ map of Pennsylvania’s 86,000 stream miles. Retrieved April 11, 2023, from https://www.psu.edu/news/agricultural-sciences/story/reviving-lost-map-pennsylvanias-86000-stream-miles/

Minderhout David (2013) Native American Prehistory in the Susquehanna River Valley. In David Minderhout (Ed.), Native Americans in the Susquehanna River Valley, Past and Present. Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University Press

MyTwinTiers.Com (2022) NBC Nightly News 6–23–1972 hurricane Agnes. Retrieved April 11, 2023, from https://www.mytwintiers.com/video/nbc-nightly-news-6-23-1972-hurricane-agnes/7781324/

National Weather Service “Flood of June 1972 - hurricane Agnes,” Retrieved May 24, 2024, from https://www.weather.gov/bgm/pastFloodJune1972#:~:text=The%20suspended%2Dsediment%20concentration%20and,%243.1%20billion%20in%2012%20States

Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (2021) Climate change in PA. Retrieved April 11, 2023, from https://gis.dep.pa.gov/ClimateChange/index.html

Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (2023) Impacts. Department of Environmental Protection. Retrieved April 11, 2023, from https://www.dep.pa.gov:443/Citizens/climate/Pages/impacts.aspx

Puzyreva K, de Vries DH (2021) ‘A low and watery place’: a case study of flood history and sustainable community engagement in flood risk management in the County of Berkshire, England. Int J Disaster Risk Reduction 52:101980. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2020.101980

Schwartz G, “Hurricane” (2017) Glenn’s blog: Agnes and me, 45-years later. Retrieved May 1, 2023, from https://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/glenns-blog-agnes/19546/

Silver Jackets (2022) Agnes personal stories. Retrieved May 24 2024 from https://storymaps.arcgis.com/collections/db572308e37147afbf5edfb873b586f8?item=4

Stoecker R (2012) Research Methods for Community Change: A Project-based Approach (Second Edition). Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications Inc.

Stranahan S (1995) Susquehanna: river of dreams. Johns Hopkins University Press

Stropnicky G (2013) “Three lenses on MicroFest USA: intentions, values, and prepositions.” Network of Ensemble Theaters. Retrieved May 1, 2023, from https://animatingdemocracy.org/sites/default/files/StropnickyNOLAPaper_Final.pdf

Susquehanna River Basin Commission (n.d.) Flooding. Retrieved on May 24 from, https://www.srbc.gov/our-work/programs/planning-operations/flooding/#:~:text=History%20of%20Flooding&text=The%20mainstem%20of%20the%20Susquehanna,in%20the%20loss%20of%20lives

Susquehanna River Basin Commission (2018) Tropical Storm Agnes in the Susquehanna River Basin. Retrieved on May 1, 2023 from https://www.srbc.gov/our-work/programs/planning-operations/docs/hurricane-agnes-flooding.pdf

The Daily Item and The Danville News (2022) Agnes, 50 years later: the effects of hurricane Agnes on the Central Susquehanna Valley and its people. Sunbury, PA: Fred Scheller Publishing

The Milton Standard (1972) Flood ’72: the aftermath of Tropical Storm Agnes and its consequences in the Lower West Branch of the Susquehanna. Milton, PA: The Milton Standard

Toomey M, Cantwell M, Colman S, Cronin T, Donnelly J, Giosan L et al (2019) The mighty Susquehanna—extreme floods in eastern North America during the past two millennia. Geophys Res Lett 46:3398–3407. https://doi.org/10.1029/2018GL080890

Tristan D (2022) Hurricane Agnes: a disaster timeline. Retrieved May 1, 2023, from https://www.abc27.com/digital-originals/hurricane-agnes-a-disaster-timeline/?ipid=promo-link-block2

Wallerstein N, Oetzel JG, Sanchez-Youngman S, Boursaw B, Dickson E, Kastelic S, Koegel P, Lucero JE, Magarati M, Ortiz K, Parker M, Peña J, Richmond A, Duran B (2020) Engage for equity: a long-term study of community-based participatory research and community-engaged research practices and outcomes. Health Education & Behavior: the Official Publication of the Society for Public Health Education 47(3):380–390. https://doi.org/10.1177/1090198119897075

WMLP Radio (1972) The agony of Agnes

WNEP (2023) About WNEP Wnep.com. Retrieved April 12, 2023, from https://www.wnep.com/about-us

WVIA (2022) Agnes 50: life after the flood. Retrieved May 1, 2023, from https://www.wvia.org/watch/agnes-50

Yale Program on Climate Change Communication (2022) Yale Climate Opinion Maps 2021. Retrieved May 4, 2023, from: https://climatecommunication.yale.edu/visualizations-data/ycom-us/

Download references

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank all members of the Agnes, Revisited project team and participants in the research project for their support and collaboration. The authors also recognize Jim Feldman and Christopher Wells for their helpful feedback on an earlier draft of the article. The article benefitted significantly from the generous, insightful comments from reviewers. Audience members at the 2023 American Society for Environmental History conference also provided input on a presentation that preceded a draft of the article.

The authors are grateful for funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Bucknell Humanities Center, and the Presidential Fellows Program at Bucknell University.

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

Environmental Studies and Sciences, Bucknell University, Lewisburg, PA, USA

Bethany Fitch & Andrew Stuhl

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Contributions

Both authors contributed to the study conception and design. Data collection and analysis were performed by both authors. The first draft of the manuscript was written by both authors, and both authors incorporated suggested revisions into the manuscript. Both authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Andrew Stuhl .

Ethics declarations

Ethics approval and consent to participate.

The Bucknell Institutional Review Board reviewed and approved this study (IRB #: 1920–081) Interviewees in this study consented to their participation through an informed consent form.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare no competing interests.

Rights and permissions

Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ .

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Fitch, B., Stuhl, A. Agnes, Revisited: methods and principles for community-engaged research on historic flood disasters. J Environ Stud Sci (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13412-024-00976-4

Download citation

Accepted : 16 August 2024

Published : 11 September 2024

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s13412-024-00976-4

Share this article

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

• Environmental humanities
• Community-based research
• Tropical Storm Agnes
• Climate hazard
• Find a journal
• Publish with us
• Track your research

• Search the List
• Explore the List by Map
• Download Listing Data
• Missing Pieces Project
• Listed Buildings
• Scheduled Monuments
• Registered Parks & Gardens
• Registered Battlefields
• Protected Wreck Sites
• Apply for Listing
• Listing Process
• Updating the List
• Listing Guidance
• About the Scheme
• How to Make a Nomination
• Community Research Grants
• Retrofit and Energy Efficiency
• Building Regulations
• Information Management
• Building Services Engineering
• Owning an Older Home
• Maintenance and Repairs
• Energy Efficiency
• Your Home's History
• Heritage Consents
• Conservation Areas
• The Planning System
• Constructive Conservation
• Search the Risk Register
• Latest Findings
• What is Heritage at Risk?
• Heritage Crime
• Caring for Rural Heritage
• Places of Worship
• How to Develop a Strategy
• How to Write Accessible Emails
• How to Chair Meetings Inclusively

Our climate change response, advice and research for owners and professionals.

Historic environment specialist training, CPD and skills development.

Search our publications, including books, periodicals and guidance.

• Find Research Reports
• Research Publications
• Aerial Archaeology Map
• Historic England Research Magazine
• Current Research
• Research Methods
• Support & Collaboration
• Research Governance
• Our Research Strategy and Agenda
• Disability History
• Slave Trade and Abolition
• LGBTQ Heritage
• Women's History
• 100 Years of Black & Asian History
• Heritage and the Economy
• Heritage and Society
• Heritage and the Environment
• Indicator Data
• Find Photos and Images
• Aerial Photos
• Explore our Collections
• Search, Copying and Licensing
• Archive Policies and Guidance
• Historic England Library
• Search for a Publication

Explore 6 million historic aerial photographs covering all of England.

• Educational Images
• Work Experience
• Teaching Activities
• Heritage Schools
• Work-Based Training
• Heritage Skills & CPD
• Our Grant Schemes
• Our Grant Priorities
• Other Grants
• Visit Grant-Aided Places
• Greater London Archaeology Advisory Service
• Enhanced Advisory Services
• Charter for Advisory Services
• What are Heritage Action Zones?
• High Streets Heritage Action Zones
• Press Statements
• Historic England Blog
• Follow and Subscribe
• East of England
• National Blue Plaque Scheme
• UK Heritage Pulse

Discover the life and works of modernist architect Ernő Goldfinger.

Day-to-day encounters with heritage is estimated to be worth £29 billion.

• Future Strategy
• Corporate Plan
• Annual Report & Accounts
• How We Are Funded
• Executive Team
• London National Office
• Swindon National Office
• Fort Cumberland
• Contact our Press Office
• Current Vacancies
• Explore Career Areas
• Apprenticeships
• Everyone's Welcome
• What is Listing?
• Protect a Historic Building or Site
• Technical Guidance
• Heritage at Risk
• Caring for Heritage
• Inclusive Heritage Advice Hub
• Research Results
• Our Research
• Inclusive Heritage
• Heritage Counts
• Images & Books
• Find Photos
• The Historic England Archive
• Search All Publications
• Services & Skills
• Training & Skills
• Our Planning Services
• Heritage Action Zones
• What's New
• News & Stories
• In Your Area
• Recently Published
• Jobs & Careers

Key Skills for Historic Environment Management

Our Keys Skills training supports heritage professionals in the public and private sectors, particularly in management and leadership roles.  It will help you develop the knowledge and skills which underpin all heritage work and lead to resilient and diverse organisations. 

Programme Aims

The training will share good practice in subjects common across many sectors and industries but with a Historic Environment focus.  This will be a small programme at first, but over time will include topics such as data management, inclusivity, diversity and equality, health & wellbeing, and project management.

The training will help participants to:

• Apply key skills commonly needed to manage businesses, people and projects in a heritage context
• Use new and emerging systems and processes
• Advocate for good practice in our sector.

Working in Projects Using MoRPHE

Historic England’s guidance on the Management of Research Projects in the Historic Environment (MoRPHE) helps you plan and run an effective project. It is written for those working on planning research projects in the historic environment. The training walks you step by step through the guidance and allows you to test your knowledge.

Explore projects using MoRPHE

Research Ethics and Integrity 

This series of short courses introduce research principles, practices and research ethics: why they are important, how you should consider them, and how they can apply to your own research.  

Topics in the series will include:

• An Introduction to Research Integrity
• Good Practice and Ethics
• Sustainability and Ethics
• Research Ethics Reviews
• Data Management and Ethics
• Collaborative Research

Explore research ethics and integrity

Please update your browser

Our website works best with the latest version of the browsers below, unfortunately your browser is not supported . Using an old browser means that some parts of our website might not work correctly.

National Wetlands Inventory

Wetlands Mapper

The Wetlands mapper is designed to deliver easy-to-use, map like views of America’s Wetland resources. It integrates digital map data along with other resource information to produce current information on the status, extent, characteristics and functions of wetlands, riparian riparian Definition of riparian habitat or riparian areas. Learn more about riparian , and deepwater habitats. The Wetland Mapper fulfills the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s strategic plan for the development, revision and dissemination of wetlands data and information to resource managers and the public. This information is intended  to promote the understanding and conservation of wetland resources through discovery and education as well as to aid in resource management, research and decision making.

The wetlands displayed on the Wetlands Mapper show wetland type and extent using a biological definition of wetlands. There is no attempt to define the limits of proprietary jurisdiction of any federal, state, or local government, or to establish the geographical scope of the regulatory programs of government agencies.

Getting Started

Please read the  Disclaimer ,  Data Limitations, Exclusions and Precautions , and the  Wetlands Geodatabase User Caution

Documentation and Instructions

• Wetlands Mapper Documentation and Instructions Manual
• VIDEO :  How to find and use the U.S Fish and Wildlife Service's Wetlands Mapper

Data and Mapper FAQs

Get answers to Frequently Asked Questions

Projects Mapper