Bayous & Bright Ideas: A Community GSI Workshop Recap

Last winter, PhD candidate Clara Medina and MS student Hailey Lu traveled to Texas to host a set of community green stormwater infrastructure (GSI) workshops with our collaborators at Bayou City Waterkeeper (BCWK). These workshops brought together residents from Northeast Houston and Baytown to co-produce a shared set of nature-based flood solutions rooted in local priorities, lived experiences, and neighborhood knowledge. Participants worked alongside researchers and partners to identify strategies that reflect what communities actually need, from safer drainage and greener public spaces to more transparent planning processes, while also exploring a live demonstration of our bilingual, publicly-accessible survey dashboards. The dashboards are designed to help residents easily understand local data and feel more confident when using it to inform conversations with lawmakers and other decision-making stakeholders. As our last official activity on this project, we hope our research can strengthen civic engagement and support more equitable, community-driven flood resilience efforts across these communities.