Bio: Dr. Philip B. Bedient Herman Brown Professor of Engineering in the Dept of Civil and Environmental Eng at Rice University. He teaches and performs research in surface water hydrology, coastal defense, disaster management, and flood modeling and prediction systems. He has directed 130 research projects over the past 50 years, has written over 220 articles in journals and conference proceedings. He is lead author on a textbook on “Hydrology and Floodplain Analysis” (Pearson, 6th ed., 2018) used in over 60 universities across the Unites States. Dr. Bedient received the Herman Brown Endowed Chair of Engineering in 2002 at Rice University, and received Fellow ASCE in 2006. He received the C.V. Theis Award from the American Institute of Hydrology in 2007 and the prestigious Ray K. Linsley Award in honor of outstanding contributions in 2007 for surface water hydrology. Dr. Bedient has five decades of experience working on flood and flood prediction problems in the U.S. He routinely runs computer models such as HEC-HMS, HEC-RAS, ADCIRC, and others for advanced hydrologic analysis, flood prediction, and coastal surge. He developed one of the first radar-based rainfall flood alert systems (FAS5) in the U.S. in Houston, and it has successfully run for nearly twenty-five years and predicted over 60 storm events.

Abstract: For more than 25 years, flood warning has monitored rainfall and response in watersheds like Brays Bayou to protect the Texas Medical Center. In 2020, the SSPEED Center helped develop the Flood Information and Response System (FIRST) for four Houston watersheds. The end-to-end radar-based flood assessment and mapping tool includes critical infrastructure, including hospitals, nursing homes, fire stations and shelters. FIRST allows users to see real-time visualizations of hotspots and inundated areas during rain events, supporting emergency closures, evacuations and rescue operations. The summer of 2026 marks the first anniversary of the devastating July 2025 floods in the Texas Hill Country with a 35 ft wall of water that took more than 137 lives, including the 27 campers from Camp Mystic.

The new Flood Early Warning System (FEWS) is based on decades of flood modeling and disaster preparedness originally operating as part of the Flood Information & Response System (FIRST) system for watersheds in Houston. The system is designed to provide predictive, not reactive, data models on rainfall to give 2-3 hours of lead time on rainfall events. While flood warnings are often associated with sirens or text alerts, the new system begins much earlier—using radar-derived rainfall data fed into advanced hydrologic and hydraulic models to forecast flood water depths at specific locations. The system uses a floodplain map library of over 100 maps created by rainfalls from 3 to 15 inches per day, and radar rainfall each 15 min is used to select the appropriate inundation map. The FEWS will be able to provide 1-2 hours of advanced warning of a flood for sheltering of evacuation to higher ground.