Wednesday, Sep 17, 2025 • Brian Lopez : Contact

The catastrophic floods that hit the Texas Hill Country in July left residents and officials scrambling for answers.

In response, the Hydrology & Hydroinformatics Innovation (H2I) Lab at The University of Texas at Arlington, led by civil engineering assistant professor Adnan Rajib, developed real-time, time-stamped flood maps showing how quickly the Guadalupe River rose. The visual data, later featured by CBS News Texas, helped residents and local and state officials better understand how the disaster unfolded.

But Rajib says that’s just the beginning.

“Too often after major flood disasters, the public conversation stops at sirens and dashboards,” Dr. Rajib said, referring to flood warning systems, which the area lacked. “True community resilience requires field-ready maps of floodplain alterations to guide recovery and rebuilding long after the cameras are gone.”

Rajib is the lead author of a new cover story article in Cell Reports Sustainability that highlights how science and government can work together to better track human-made changes to natural floodplains. These changes, like increasing development within floodplains, make flooding worse. The article, titled, “Barriers to quantifying human alterations of global floodplains and how we can overcome them,” argues that without standardized ways to measure these changes, communities risk falling short in recovery and preparation efforts.

Related: UTA to lead NASA wildfire grant

The study identifies four major challenges:

·       Different definitions of what counts as floodplain changes

·       Inconsistent maps showing floodplain boundaries

·       Limited use of key indicators that predict changes

·       Data that doesn’t line up in scale or resolution, making comparisons difficult

It also offers practical fixes, calling for a shared set of metrics that would allow agencies to compare projects fairly, revise ordinances, and restore wetlands or habitats with confidence.

This latest work builds on Rajib’s 2023 study published in Nature Scientific Data, which produced the first global estimate of floodplain loss: nearly 150 million acres of natural floodplains converted to agriculture and development between 1992 and 2019.

Together, Rajib said, real-time flood mapping and standardized floodplain change data will help communities relocate homeowners from flood-prone areas, invest in green infrastructure to manage stormwater and reduce flood risk and strengthen resilience against the next major storm.

“Rapid maps and warnings help in the first 24 hours,” Rajib said. “But a structured dataset capturing how humans have been changing natural floodplains helps forever. Texas—and flood-prone communities everywhere—need both.”

About The University of Texas at Arlington (UTA)

Celebrating its 130^th anniversary in 2025, The University of Texas at Arlington is a growing public research university in the heart of the thriving Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex. With a student body of over 41,000, UTA is the second-largest institution in the University of Texas System, offering more than 180 undergraduate and graduate degree programs. Recognized as a Carnegie R-1 university, UTA stands among the nation’s top 5% of institutions for research activity. UTA and its 280,000 alumni generate an annual economic impact of $28.8 billion for the state. The University has received the Innovation and Economic Prosperity designation from the Association of Public and Land Grant Universities and has earned recognition for its focus on student access and success, considered key drivers to economic growth and social progress for North Texas and beyond.