Scenic Galveston and the SSPEED Center at Rice are launching two major initiatives designed to bolster wetland health and improve storm resilience across the Houston-Galveston region.
Rice’s Severe Storm Prediction, Education and Evacuation from Disasters (SSPEED) Center convened more than 100 experts, industry leaders and attendees Nov. 6-7 for its 12th annual conference, connecting cutting-edge flood mitigation with the fast-emerging world of market-based natural carbon solutions.
Rice’s Bedient details flood warning system solutions at Texas joint special session
In a powerful testimony before a joint hearing of the Texas Senate and House committees on disaster preparedness and flooding, Philip Bedient called for urgent investment in real-time flood warning systems, citing lessons learned from both Houston and the devastating Hill Country floods earlier this month.
Rice SSPEED Center’s FIRST system provides critical flood warnings in real time
In the aftermath of the devastating July 2025 floods in the Texas Hill Country, the need for reliable, real-time flood warning systems has never been more urgent.
The Severe Storm Prediction, Education and Evacuation from Disasters Center at Rice, in collaboration with a team of experts, has developed the Galveston Bay Park Plan, an in-bay barrier and park system designed to provide enhanced storm surge protection and navigation and environmental benefits for the highly vulnerable west side of Galveston Bay.
Forecasters predicting 17 named storms in Atlantic this hurricane season
Experts from Rice are available to speak with the media about hurricane and storm-related topics.
Blue carbon project will create a living shoreline to protect coastal ecosystems in Galveston Bay
Rice, BCarbon and Scenic Galveston have launched an innovative project to protect the Kohfeldt Marsh near Texas City from sea level rise through the design and creation of a living shoreline.
Alumna Carol Haddock brings decades of leadership and public service experience to Rice
Carol Haddock ’91 has carved a remarkable path in civil engineering. Now, as a professor-in-the-practice of civil and environmental engineering at Rice University’s George R. Brown School of Engineering and Computing, she is imparting her hard-earned knowledge to the next generation of engineers.
Rice-led research will leverage responsible AI to enhance coastal communities’ severe storm response
A team of Rice engineers and partners won a $1.5 million NSF award for a project that leverages responsible AI to enhance emergency response to coastal compound hazard events.
SSPEED Center, Rice Engineering to launch nature-based carbon credit research projects
The Severe Storm Prediction, Education and Evacuation from Disasters Center and the George R. Brown School of Engineering at Rice have announced plans to launch two research projects on nature-based carbon credits funded through a gift from Emissions Reduction Corp.
Annual SSPEED Center conference welcomes international flood-control experts
The Severe Storm Prediction, Education and Evacuation from Disasters (SSPEED) Center at Rice hosted its 11th annual conference last month at the university’s Anderson-Clarke Center.
A new National Science Foundation-funded study by Rice University will examine whether design strategies aimed at improving civic engagement in stormwater infrastructure could help reduce catastrophic flooding.
SSPEED-hosted demo featured water-inflatable flood barriers
Large, water-inflatable barriers were featured in a March 7 demonstration of flood-defense technologies hosted by Rice’s SSPEED Center.
Rice experts available to discuss 5th anniversary of Harvey
As the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Harvey approaches, Rice University experts are available to discuss the storm’s ongoing impact.
City, county and port support Galveston Bay Park study
Houston, Harris County, Port Houston and entrepreneur Joe Swinbank have chipped in for an engineering study of Galveston Bay Park, a chain of man-made islands that Rice University experts have proposed building as both a hurricane barrier and a 10,000-acre public park.