Flood protection meets climate action: SSPEED’s annual conference maps a path to
resilient communities by Alex Becker

Rice University’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.

Hosted at Rice’s Anderson–Clarke Center, the meeting was deliberately split into two distinct but
deeply linked days. The first day of the conference focused on major infrastructure, nature-based
flood strategies and real-time lessons from this summer’s devastating Hill Country flood. The
following day’s topics turned to natural climate solutions and the carbon market, tools that can
channel private capital into land stewardship, coastal protection and methane abatement while
reinforcing long-term flood resilience.

“We organized the program around four big thrusts we’ve advanced for years,” said Philip
Bedient, director of the SSPEED Center and the Herman Brown Professor of Engineering at
Rice. “Galveston Bay Park Plan, nature-based solutions, Harris County’s MaapNext floodplain
modeling, and hard-won lessons from the Hill Country flood. Getting all of that into one day is
ambitious, but it’s exactly these conversations Houston and Texas need.”

The conference opened with updates on the Galveston Bay Park Plan, a regional surge and flood-
mitigation concept SSPEED has refined since 2016 with architects, engineers and public
partners. Sessions led by Rogers Partners, Jim Blackburn and Rice engineer Avantika Gori
charted how design, advanced modeling and governance are converging as the region invests in
layered coastal protection.

Nature-based flood solutions followed, featuring Dutch and Rice experts on green infrastructure
that slows, stores and soaks stormwater across neighborhoods, counties and watersheds.
“What used to be called ‘low-impact development’ has matured into Nature-Based Solutions,
and we’ve become leaders in the field — working with researchers, students and practitioners to
actually build these systems,” said Blackburn, Professor in the Practice of Environmental Law at
Rice and co-director of the SSPEED Center.

A highlight was Harris County Flood Control District’s preview of MaapNext (Modeling,
Assessment, and Awareness Project), a next-generation, county-wide 2D floodplain modeling
effort expected to change how risk is mapped and mitigated.

“Bringing Harris County leadership to campus to discuss MaapNext matters,” Bedient said.
“These are the people who can implement change in one of the most flood-prone cities in the
United States.”

Recognizing the urgency of extreme rainfall beyond Houston, the program also examined the
July 4 Hill Country flood, which struck the Guadalupe River Basin with astonishing speed and

intensity. UT-Arlington’s Nick Fang and Jacob Torres shared advances in flood warning and
monitoring, while a poster session convened the teams running the region’s flood-warning
system.

“To have a big conference and not address the Guadalupe flood would be a mistake,” Bedient
said. “We’re tackling it head-on to accelerate practical improvements.”

Equally important, Day 1 threaded engineering with social science and community partnership.
Rice scholars Jim Elliott and Dominic Boyer discussed new Creative Ventures–supported
outreach with residents affected in the basin.

“If you don’t have buy-in from communities, you’re wasting your time,” Bedient said. “We’re
blending engineering with social impact because implementation is where resilience succeeds or
fails.”

Bedient also pointed to collaborations seeded during the meeting: “We’ve got the City of
Houston, Harris County, the Port of Houston and state partners here — people who can take
research and turn it into projects. There are real opportunities with UT-Arlington, and we’re
building new ties with Texas Tech’s meteorology group to pair advanced weather analysis with
our hydrology and infrastructure work.”

The second day showcased how natural systems can store carbon and strengthen resilience, with
sessions spanning soil carbon on working lands, forest carbon, coastal “blue carbon” and
methane abatement via orphan-well plugging. It also traced how carbon markets and registries,
like BCarbon, incubated in collaboration with Rice and the Baker Institute, help landowners,
companies and communities monetize stewardship.

“Day 2 is about market-based natural carbon solutions,” said Chris Ordoñez, program manager
for Nature Based Solutions at the SSPEED Center. “We brought together the market architects,
the scientists and the project developers in one intimate space to learn from each other and form
long-term partnerships.”

Ordoñez emphasized the scientific backbone of the agenda: “Soils are tremendous carbon stores
— native grasses pull carbon from the air and move it into the ground for durable storage. Our
biochar keynote with Rice’s Carrie Masiello highlighted a fast-growing approach that locks
carbon into a stable form while improving soil health and water retention. It’s one of those win-
wins where you can store carbon and support sustainable agriculture.”

Beyond Texas, SSPEED and partners discussed work in Tamaulipas, Mexico, where teams are
helping develop protocols for nature-based credits and piloting on-the-ground projects. Sessions
also examined the methane market and practical steps to plug abandoned and orphaned wells,
actions that generate credits while delivering immediate climate and public-safety benefits.

Amid skepticism about climate solutions, Ordoñez voiced reasons for resolve. “There’s plenty of
pessimism out there, but Earth already gives us the best tools we have right now,” he said. “We

won’t meet our climate goals without carbon removal, and nature is our most readily deployable
pathway today.”

Houston’s long history with hurricanes and extreme rainfall has taught a clear lesson: resilience
is not one project or one agency but rather a portfolio that blends engineered protection,
watershed-wide green infrastructure, community partnership, and policy and market mechanisms
that mobilize investment at scale. In that sense, the conference functioned less a symposium than
a launch pad to align infrastructure, ecology and economics to help communities thrive in a
wetter, warmer century.