18th Annual Meeting
June 11-14, 2018
The Hilton Post-Oak - Houston, TX
Hosted by Texas A&M AgriLife Extension
Ecological Engineering: Addressing Uncertainty in a Dynamic World
The Annual Meeting of the American Ecological Engineering Society takes place in Houston this year, with the theme "Ecological Engineering: Addressing Uncertainty in a Dynamic World". In the spirit of this theme, we will synergize efforts and integrate ecological engineering viewed through the lens of scientists, practitioners, policy makers, and society to advance the development of sustainable ecosystems, while fostering education and outreach in a constantly changing world. The meeting will consist of a plenary session, technical sessions, poster presentations, a student design competition, networking opportunities, and a suite of field trips, including TCWP wetland restoration and stormwater wetland sites.
Meeting Agenda
Field Trips
Sheldon State Park
​
This tour will take us through the initial phase of wetland restoration completed at Sheldon Lake State Park. Set within an urban park just 15 minutes east of downtown Houston, these restored marshes offer a glimpse of the historical coastal prairie wetland matrix, prior to any agricultural development.
Stormwater Wetlands
​
This tour will visit two stormwater wetlands:
​
1) The MD Anderson stormwater treatment wetland, located in the Texas Medical Center, is a small flood control basin that receives stormwater from an adjacent parking lot and has been designed to contain wetlands. As a demonstration site for natural water quality improvement, it also provides an interesting landscape destination for MD Anderson's staff and patient population.
​
2) This Exploration Green Nature Park is a transformation of a 200-acre defunct golf course into a stormwater detention facility in order to create five-finger lakes featuring miles of walking trails, native trees, and stormwater wetlands. The tour will visit the first completed section.
Green Street Reconstruction
​
The Bagby Street Reconstruction Project is the first Greenroads project in Texas, redeveloping a deteriorating ten-block corridor in the dense, urban, and rapidly developing Midtown neighborhood of Houston. The existing asphalt surface was in poor condition with severe cracking, potholes, and patching evident throughout. In addition to surface rehabilitation, the Project provides an improvement to pedestrian and parking facilities with access to local businesses and the Midtown Park, as well as low-impact development technologies. Space for these upgrades was found by implementing a road-diet, as traffic studies determined that the four-lane one-way collector could comfortably be reduced to two lanes.