Galen Newman, PHD, FASLA, FCELA, APA
Professor and Department Head, Department of Landscape Architecture and Urban Planning (LAUP)
Texas A&M University
“Mitigating Contamination during Flood Events in Fenceline Communities: Strategies for Strengthening Resilience”
Thursday, May 21
2:00 PM | Healthy KY Research Building Seminar Room
UK-CARES welcomes visiting speaker, Dr. Galen Newman from Texas A&M University to discuss how urban expansion and climate change are compounding flood risks and public health risks in coastal and industrial “fenceline” communities.
In cities like Tampa, FL, scenario-based land change modeling, using tools such as the Land Transformation Model combined with the Long-Term Hydrologic Impact Assessment (L-THIA), provides critical insight into how comprehensive planning affects future flood exposure and pollutant load. Findings show that Tampa's current future land use plan, though improved over past development practices, still results in higher flood exposure, stormwater runoff, and pollutant discharge than present conditions, underscoring the necessity for more resilient, adaptive growth strategies.
Similarly, in Galena Park, TX, a hub for petrochemical activity, increasingly severe floods threaten to mobilize hazardous substances into surrounding neighborhoods, with significant health implications. This research demonstrates that adaptive green infrastructure (GI) toolkits—designed for both spatial and subsurface constraints—can effectively reduce flooding, non-point source pollution, and contaminant transfer. Tested with a phased master plan and advanced hydrologic models, GI interventions in Galena Park led to reductions of up to 13% in runoff and pollutant loads and as much as 30% in flooded area and peak flood volume during hurricanes. Collectively, these approaches offer transferable strategies for enhancing resilience and environmental health in vulnerable fenceline communities.
Dr. Newman's research interests include community resilience, urban regeneration, land use science, spatial analytics, and built environment performance. His work has been published in many high-quality peer-reviewed outlets (over 150 journal articles) and has been funded through numerous internal and external funding sources, including the National Science Foundation and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, totaling over 76 million. He has also won many national and international awards/recognitions for his research, teaching, and service.
