Research Projects Texas WEATHER: Community-Engaged Flood Resilience in the Hill Country Overview. Texas WEATHER (Whole-community Efforts to Adapt, THrive, and Enhance Resilience) is a National Science Foundation planning grant led by the University of Texas at Austin (NSF Award #2435096). The project builds partnerships between academic researchers and Texas communities facing climate-driven hazards, beginning with flood-prone communities across the Texas Hill Country. Through interviews, group meetings, and co-developed training, the team works alongside local leaders to identify resilience priorities and shape research grounded in real community needs. Background. Texas WEATHER is funded under NSF’s Confronting Hazards, Impacts, and Risks for a Resilient Planet (CHIRRP) program, which advances convergent, community-engaged research on climatological and geological hazards such as flooding, extreme heat, wildfire, drought, and severe storms. The work is grounded in principles of reciprocity and co-production, engaging community partners as experts rather than research subjects. It responds to gaps in early warning, multi-jurisdictional coordination, and community preparedness underscored by the devastating July 2025 Hill Country floods. Goals. Through the planning phase, the project aims to establish relationships with affected Hill Country communities, co-develop flood-preparedness training curriculum reflecting local knowledge, and help seed a regional community of practice connecting leaders across watersheds. Longer-term, Texas WEATHER works toward a full NSF CHIRRP proposal, a replicable model for academic–community partnerships in hazard-prone regions, and translation of community needs into state and federal policy recommendations. Tri-National Pollinator Conservation Social Network Analysis Overview. In partnership with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Center for Pollinator Conservation, the University of Texas at Austin is conducting a social network analysis of organizations working on pollinator conservation across the United States, Canada, and Mexico. Launched in January 2026, the study identifies the structure and functions of pollinator conservation networks across the tri-national community to support science needs, information sharing, and strategies for multi-sector collaboration. Background. Pollinators face a growing crisis with implications for agricultural security, the economy, and the ecosystems that depend on them. This social network analysis maps current activities, communication channels, and relationships among federal, state, Tribal, academic, non-governmental, and private-sector organizations to reveal the strengths, gaps, and opportunities for improving collaborative pollinator conservation. To support shared learning, the project team is convening workshops with internal and external partners to interpret results and co-develop recommendations. To date, the network stands at 1,433 organizations connected by 3,207 collaboration ties, built from 565 retained respondents. Objectives. Grounded in social science and network theory, the analysis aims to: (1) identify the primary activities, geographic scales, and support needs of key pollinator conservation organizations; (2) describe the characteristics of existing networks to reveal strengths, bottlenecks, gaps, and options for better coordination; and (3) examine the driving factors for successful collaboration, including shared direction, alignment of work, mutual commitment, and perceived barriers. The study’s analytical workflow solves the core measurement problem of multi-wave snowball network studies: hundreds of respondents name thousands of collaborating organizations in free text, and no valid network can be built until every variant spelling resolves to a single canonical entity. It automates the path from raw Qualtrics exports to an analysis-ready social network — merging seven survey instruments, standardizing organization names through a versioned dictionary with a human-in-the-loop review cycle, and constructing edge lists, centrality metrics, and a comprehensive node attribute table. Because the study is a living snowball design, the same run that builds the network also generates the next wave’s recruitment list, closing the loop between analysis and data collection. Survey responses are merged and cleaned, organization names are standardized, and collaboration ties are assembled into a network for centrality analysis, with each wave informing outreach for the next. Project progress (as of July 2026). The survey has been fielded in English, Spanish, and French across five outreach rounds since January 2026, reaching more than 1,200 invited contacts. The resulting tri-national collaboration network spans local, regional, national, and international scales. Among the most connected organizations to date are the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation, the Monarch Joint Venture, and the U.S. Forest Service. East Africa Water Governance and Household Water Security Our research program examines household-level water access, affordability, and quality under devolved governance systems in East Africa, with Kenya as the primary field site and Tanzania as an expanding comparative context. Working through a multi-institutional partnership among The University of Texas at Austin, the GivePower Foundation, South Eastern Kenya University (SEKU), and the University of Dodoma (UDOM), the team combines structured household and vendor surveys, water quality assessment, and engineering analysis to evaluate decentralized innovations—principally solar-powered desalination (Solar Water Farms) and Moringa oleifera household filtration—against the SDG 6.1 standard of safely managed drinking water. Recent findings. Findings from three years of fieldwork in coastal Kenya reveal that private vendors supply roughly three-quarters of household drinking water, that no surveyed households met safely managed criteria, and that communities with Solar Water Farms experience both significantly lower water costs and an 18.3 percentage point reduction in the probability of self-reported waterborne illness—evidence that decentralized, renewable-energy-based water provision can meaningfully improve health and affordability outcomes where public infrastructure remains limited. The 2026 field season extends this work to Mombasa-area communities in Kenya and to Dodoma, Tanzania, where a parallel household survey, membrane pre-treatment optimization, and community co-design of Moringa filtration will support a cross-national comparison of how devolved governance shapes pathways to safe water. Pathways of water quality, cost, and uses in Kenya. Kenya’s water access pathways reveal a fragmented system where devolution has created a market-dominated landscape rather than coordinated public service delivery. The analysis of 1,592 water source observations demonstrates that private vendors represent the dominant pathway for water access, accounting for 52% of all observations, while public infrastructure—including both government kiosks and piped water systems—serves only 14% of the population. This market concentration reflects how Kenya’s current water provision is a commercialized system where access depends primarily on household purchasing power rather than a public service model with universal service provision, potentially a result of the decentralization policies passed in the last decade. NASA-funded ATX Climate Atlas Along with an interdisciplinary team of UT researchers, City of Austin Office of Resilience staff, and Go Austin Vamos Austin, the SSPG research group lead the development of an ATX Climate Atlas funded by NASA’s Equity and Environmental Justice Program. ATX Climate Atlas News and Press Release NPR Radio Story on Climate Atlas Austin Area Sustainability Indicators (A2SI) At the Austin Area Sustainability Indicators (A2SI), we aim to measure quality of life, sustainability trends, and serve as the foundation for a systems approach to address challenges in Central Texas. We operationalize our mission by Collecting, Connecting, Catalyzing. Collecting primary and secondary data, analyzing it, and reporting it are the foundational tasks of the project. Connecting by ensuring that the data that is collected and reported is in service of the community. This includes the dissemination of the results to a wide range of stakeholders and community members. The result is catalyzing action by different segments of the community. This action can take many forms, but generally reflects how philanthropy, non-profits, government, and community can use data to improve decision-making and policy design. See our research page on our website for more information about our A2SI projects. 2025 Report | Website Texas Flood Social Vulnerability Index (TX F-SVI) The Texas Water Development Board (TWDB) and other agencies use Social Vulnerability Indices (SVIs) for a variety of management purposes such as flood planning and flood mitigation funding. There are two widely available sources of SVIs: 1) the Social Vulnerability Index (SoVI) from the Hazards and Vulnerability Institute at the University of South Carolina and the 2) the SVI created by the Centers for Disease Control. Although existing SVIs have a wide range of applicable uses, they are neither customized for flood hazard, nor for Texas. This project developed a flood-specific SVI (TX F-SVI) for Texas that considers parameters applicable and relevant to flooding to guide prioritization for flood planning and funding efforts. Partners: Dr. Paola Passalacqua (Cockrell School of Engineering, UT Austin), Dr. Eric Tate (School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University) Planet Texas 2050: Networks for Hazard Preparedness and Response Along with Dr. Paola Passalacqua in Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering, Dr. Bixler co-leads a Planet Texas 2050 Flagship project called Networks for Hazard Preparedness and Response. Texas is uniquely positioned for increasing exposure to a wide range of climate-driven natural hazards. Leading the way is expensive and deadly catastrophic flooding from hurricanes, storm surges, and extreme rain events. Making Texas resilient requires innovative ways to understand interacting natural, technical, and social processes that natural disasters intersect so that our communities can prepare and respond to increasing threats. Our flagship is driving scientific discovery through novel network science approaches to integrated modeling and transform the way we govern disaster risk and response. Website Other Planet Texas 2050 supported project include: Texas Metro Observatory, Texas Environmental NGOs Past Research Projects Texas Water Governance In partnership with the Texas Water Foundation and with support from the Mitchell Foundation, we are mapping the Texas Water Governance System. Interact with Texas Water institutions and policy mechanisms here. Extreme Heat in Austin Our research group is working with UT-Health, the Jackson School of Geosciences, and Go Austin, Vamos Austin (GAVA) to understand and mitigate the impacts of extreme heat on Austin’s more vulnerable populations. With funding and support from NOAA’s Extreme Heat Risk Initiative, we are working to assess risk, risk perception, and community engagement strategies to better prepare Austin residents. Austin Heat Resilience Playbook
