Community Partnerships

The Diluvial Houston Initiative has several community partners that help to shape our research aims and priorities, as well as serve as advisors on the work of the larger Houston environmental community.

If you represent an organization or group that would like to collaborate with the Diluvial Houston Initiative please reach out to our program manager, Weston Twardowski, at westont@rice.edu.

We are honored to have partnerships with the following organizations:

Air Alliance Houston

Our Mission: Reduce the public health impacts from air pollution through research, education, and advocacy.
Our Vision: Healthy communities with clean air, every day for everyone. 
Our Belief: Everyone has a right to breathe clean air and where you live, work, learn, and play should not determine your health.

For over 25 years, we have worked to hear your concerns, research the solutions, educate the public, and affect policy to protect public health.

Bayou City Waterkeeper

Established in 2001, Bayou City Waterkeeper (BCWK) has a long history of working for the Lower Galveston Bay Watershed. BCWK – formerly Galveston Baykeeper – was founded out of the Galveston Bay Conservation and Preservation Association to address industrialization along Galveston Bay.

In June 2017, Galveston Baykeeper formally changed its name to Bayou City Waterkeeper to better reflect the work we do across the Lower Galveston Bay watershed, as well as demonstrate our connection and dedication to the health of bayous and waterways that connect to the Bay and Gulf of Mexico.

For 17 years, Bayou City Waterkeeper has focused its efforts in three main areas: (1) wetland protection; (2) regional and local stormwater permits and infrastructure; and, (3) water quality concerns and compliance under the Clean Water Act.

Historically, our water quality activities have included a Citizen Wetland Watch Program to watchdog the US Army Corps of Engineers in its enforcement activities, an active illicit-discharge monitoring program, and an initiative to educate local governments on ways that wetland mitigation can be used to increase local green space. We continue this work by actively using advocacy, education, research, communication, cooperation, monitoring and legal actions to protect and preserve the Lower Galveston Bay watershed and its waterways.

Citizens Environmental Coalition

The Citizens’ Environmental Coalition is an alliance of diverse nonprofit, governmental, and educational organizations whose activities impact our environment and quality of life in the Houston-Galveston area. Our approximately 100 member organizations cover a broad spectrum, including professional associations, conservation groups, and activists.

The Citizens’ Environmental Coalition was founded in 1971 by an outstanding group of women who were proactive in the environmental causes of the day. They successfully lobbied for many quality of life issues. They saved Buffalo Bayou from being straightened and lined with concrete, they created a nature center at Armand Bayou, and they built safe places to ride bicycles – just to name a few accomplishments. These visionary women saw that there was a real need for all the local environmental groups to communicate with each other, to coordinate their efforts, and to support each other. They created the CEC to serve that need.

Over 40 years later, communication remains our mission. We work to foster dialogue and collaboration regarding environmental issues, and serve as an information clearinghouse for our member groups and the community at large through a variety of programs. Our service area is the 13-county region, including Austin, Brazoria, Chambers, Colorado, Fort Bend, Galveston, Harris, Liberty, Matagorda, Montgomery, Walker, Waller, and Wharton Counties.