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Abstract In 2021, eight counties in Southeast Texas formed a non‐tax authority flood control partnership to provide a forum for communication, create a regional database and improve flood modeling, early warning, and flood mitigation decisions. This partnership is able to successfully deploy and manage an early warning flood system network at relatively low‐cost by: (i) assigning the university as technical expert and general network administrator so that no additional agency workforce is required to operate and maintain the system, (ii) the flood monitoring system is a simple system and (iii) the data was able to be displayed in real‐time using an existing web‐based dashboard owned and operated by another agency within the partnership. The low‐cost sensors are lightweight and easily mountable which allowed them to be rapidly deployed within a short period of time (73 sensor sites installed within 7‐month window) over a 6000 square mile area. The data is shared with the public, and local, state, and federal agencies to monitor drainage infrastructure, and provide the community with flash flood and roadway closure alerts.

Floods are common natural disasters worldwide and pose substantial risks to life, property, food production, and natural resources. Effective measures for flood mitigation and warning are essential. Southeast Texas is still at significant risk of flooding, and Lamar University is assisting the region with asset management of a flood sensor network for flooding events. This network provides real-time water stage information. Lamar University developed a survey program to measure elevation and coordinates at each sensor site location to make this data more useful for flood monitoring and mapping. This paper overviews the measurement of the elevation and coordinates of 74 networked flood sensors and various flood stage thresholds at critical points that flood decision-makers can use for reference at each site. In the first phase of this program, these sensors were deployed throughout a 7-county region spanning nearly 6,000 square miles in Southeast Texas. The latitude and longitude of the sensors and their elevations were determined using survey-grade Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) technology. Various Continually Operating Reference Stations (CORS) were utilized for post-processing to achieve sub-inch resolution. The flood stage thresholds, water level sensors elevation, and the elevations and positions of other critical surrounding points are viewable to the public through two online repositories and a web-based sensor management dashboard. The data is used to aid with decisions related to road closures or modeling efforts by mitigation decision-makers, emergency managers, and the public, including the Texas Department of Transportation, Houston Transtar, the National Weather Service, and the Sabine River Authority of Texas (SRA).

Abstract Magnesium chloride (MgCl2) deicers applications onto pervious concrete pavements can deteriorate the material, and studies investigate treatments to increase the concrete resistance to MgCl2 attacks. In this paper, pervious concrete specimens are subjected to a treatment with Sodium Bicarbonate (NaHCO3) solution, which seems to accelerate concrete carbonation and might hamper chemical reactions between MgCl2 deicer and hydroxides in cement mortar. All specimens had their compressive strength tested and the time frames before and after treatment varied. Results show that at least 2 months should be given post curing before treatment to not harm the concrete, and longer post treatment periods may be beneficial.