Spring Meeting with TDWR, TDEM, & USACE

February 14, 2020  |  Center for Space Reseach, Austin

The Interagency Flood Risk Management (InFRM) Academic Council met in mid-February primarily to discuss the motivation and big picture goals for the Council, as well as the existing collaborations occurring. The meeting included presentations from Nick Fang from the University of Texas at Dallas, Phil Bedient from Rice University, Jerry Cotter of the U.S. Corps of Engineers, Sam Brody of Texas A&M at Galveston, Clint Dawson and Gordon Wells of the University of Texas at Austin, and John Nielsen-Gammon of Texas A&M University. These members shared their respective areas of expertise and gathered feedback as to how the Council could best gather and coordinate the latest research, tools and models as it relates to areas of flood prediction, flood risk mitigation and meteorological research.

The Council meeting identified a series of “Need Statements” as they continue their work and better establish the work to meet the mission of InFRM. Top needs that were identified throughout this process include: the need for a “central knowledge hub” or “central modeling repository” for models, tools and research; a need to help local governments establish flood-warning systems, its maintenance and compile success stories; a need for predictive systems with “reasonable” runtimes and; a need for a storm database that includes river-basin levels and scalable climate data. As far data sharing, communication and outreach discussion, the Council identified the need for a long-term data platform and brief updates on current research. Overall, the meeting was a success and the Council plans to build on these findings in future meetings to best serve its stakeholders.