William Butler

William Butler is a Professor and PhD Program Director at Florida State University in the Department of Urban and Regional Planning. His work focuses on collaborative environmental planning and management, particularly addressing climate change adaptation, ecological restoration, and food systems planning through collaborative governance frameworks.

• Bachelor of Arts in French and Economics from Guilford College (1996)
• Master of Urban and Regional Planning from Virginia Tech (2003)
• PhD in Environmental Design and Planning from Virginia Tech (2009)

Research interests include enhancing social-ecological resilience through collaborative governance, climate adaptation planning for sea level rise in Florida, and transitions toward locally oriented food systems. He has extensive publications on collaborative forest management, climate gentrification risks, and policy implementation challenges.

Recent publications demonstrate expertise in Environmental Planning (climate gentrification, sea level rise), Forest Management (collaborative restoration, stakeholder turnover), and Policy Analysis (legal frameworks, accountability tensions). Work spans coastal resilience, public lands governance, and adaptive management across spatial scales.

• Co-editor of A New Era for Collaborative Forest Management (Routledge, 2019)
• Key contributor to climate adaptation literature in Journals of Environmental Planning and Management and Urban Studies