Note: Early Bird Pricing is November 1, 2025 - January 21, 2026 / Advanced Pricing (ADV) is January 22, 2026 - February 27, 2026 / Onsite Pricing (ONS) is February 28, 2026 – May 20, 2026.
Technical Tour: West Galveston Bay-Brazos River Delta: A Complex Deltaic-Barrier Island System
(ticket required)
Wednesday, May 20, 2026 | 12:30 – 5:30 p.m. (5 hours)
$100 EB / $125 ADV / $125 ONS
3.5 PDHs
Due to limited participant capacity, this bus tour is non-refundable once purchased. You may transfer it to another attendee if you are unable to attend.
*** capacity 100 participants ***
The West Galveston Bay Coastal System is complex and is a good example of how deltas and coastal estuaries and barrier island systems change. This field trip will present how each geologic-geomorphic system has its signature through their origin, evolution, dynamics, human integration, disaster impacts, navigation, severe beach erosion, habitat restoration and storm protection systems interacting with each other. We will visit Gulf and Bay shorelines, paleo deltas, transitional deltas, navigation channels, deltaic beaches, barrier island beaches, and dynamic inlets.
The field trip will cover ~125,000 years of coastal adaptations to past global sea level changes and landscape responses. We will travel through the boundaries of West Galveston Bay, Chocolate Bay, Christmas Bay, Drum Bay and the Brazos River Delta. The trip will visit areas connected to fluvial, paleo delta, modern delta, coastal, estuarine, barrier island, and bay inlet environments. It will also include the evolution barrier islands created on top of the Brazos River Delta. We will discuss how understanding the changes in geology and the geomorphological adaptations can help us to develop better resilient engineering solutions.
The field trip is intended to show how public and private infrastructure are adapting to the precedent geology and fast coastal changes, and how communities and stakeholders are responding to recurrent coastal hazards.
Planned Stops:
1. Tiki Island: West Galveston Bay-Galveston Bay Entrance-Gulf Intracoastal Waterway Dynamics: Hydrodynamics of geomorphology of a very dynamic estuary.
2. Pierce Marsh*: Habitat Restoration through beneficial use of dredge material site influenced by GIWW sedimentation.
(*This stop is pending due to access permissions required).
3. Chocolate Bayou: Geomorphology of a paleo valley before sea level rise inundation and examples of a transition to an active estuarine system.
4. Historic River Delta Migration: Evidence of historic the Brazos River Delta channel migration and estuarine and marsh diversification, evidence of relative sea level rise inundation and land subsidence.
5. Port Freeport Ship Channel Entrance: Large scale navigation channel influence, historic Brazos River channel diversion, severe beach erosion, shoreline protection alternatives, GIWW processes, and community resiliency.
6. Deltaic-Beach Processes: Beach and dune processes on top of a former delta.
7. San Luis Pass Inlet: Dynamic inlet processes on the only Texas inlet that has not been modified by structural controls.
[This tour is being organized by: Juan Moya, Ph.D., PG, Lead for Building with Nature Solutions at Lochner]
Technical Tour: Coastal Texas Project
(ticket required)
Wednesday, May 20, 2026 | 12:30 – 3:30 p.m. (3 hours)
$100 EB / $125 ADV / $125 ONS
2.0 PDHs
Due to limited participant capacity, this boat tour is non-refundable once purchased. You may transfer it to another attendee if you are unable to attend.
*** capacity 100 participants ***
Along the Texas coast, vital resources critical to the social, economic, and environmental welfare of the nation are at risk. When coastal storms damage homes, businesses, industry, infrastructure, and the natural environments of the Texas coast, the immediate fallout, and the continued aftermath, affects not only the people who live in these coastal counties, but also the entire state of Texas, and the nation as-a-whole. The Coastal Texas Project is a multipurpose undertaking that includes a combination of coastal storm risk management (CSRM) and ecosystem restoration (ER) measures that function as a system of systems utilizing a “multiple lines- of-defense” strategy to reduce the risk of coastal storm surge damages to our coastal communities and vitally important industries, while restoring degraded coastal ecosystems to improve our natural defenses. Focused on redundancy and robustness, the project provides increased resiliency along the Texas coast and is adaptable to future conditions - including the threat of sea level rise and severe coastal erosion.
The tour will cover a wide variety of topics including: Mega infrastructure (design, construction, & operations); balancing performance, cost, social acceptance, environmental impacts; storm surge, sea level rise, and coastal erosion; and public engagement.
Tour stops will include:
- San Jacinto Historic Monument (end of the Seawall) to see the site of the Bolivar Roads Gate System
- Galveston Ferry – sail around the Bolivar Roads inlet and discuss the entire Galveston Bay Storm Surge Barrier System
- A stop at Fish Village to discuss the backside of the Galveston Ring Barrier
- Head to the Cruise Terminal #25 and discuss synchronization with the Port of Galveston’s Master Plan and the City of Galveston Interior Drainage study
- Drive the backside of the Galveston Ring Barrier footprint, and head up to the front of Galveston Island to end the tour by walking out on Galveston Beach and discussing the Galveston/Bolivar Beach & Dune restoration/protection systems.
[This tour is being organized by: Himangshu "HD" Das, Ph.D., P.E., Chief, Coastal Engineering Section, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers - Galveston District] Ray Newby, Maritime Division Waterways Coordinator, Texas Department of Transportation, and Tony Williams, Deputy Director of Coastal Field Operations, Texas General Land Office.
Technical Tour: Galveston Island's - Civil & Coastal Engineering History Tour
(ticket required)
Wednesday, May 20, 2026 | 12:30 – 4:30 p.m. (4 hours)
$100 EB / $125 ADV / $125 ONS
3.0 PDHs
Due to limited participant capacity, this bus tour is non-refundable once purchased. You may transfer it to another attendee if you are unable to attend.
*** capacity 100 participants ***
The civil engineering history of Galveston Island began with the construction of its jetties, which are the longest in the world, as it should be, it’s Texas. The construction of the Galveston Seawall was a monumental project that transformed the island's defense against tropical cyclones. The seawall was built after the 1900 Galveston hurricane, which resulted in the greatest natural disaster in U.S. history in terms of life loss. This also resulted in a locally funded grade raising project, which required the construction of temporary canals and the lifting of structures, which was completed in phases between 1904 and 1910. The project involved the use of innovative materials and methods, including the dredging of sand from the Gulf of Mexico and Galveston Bay and the use of jackscrews and cribbing to raise buildings. The grade raising was a monumental feat of engineering, requiring the cooperation of city officials and the community to manage the intricate processes of raising and filling the proposed areas and replacing all the municipal infrastructure.
The tour will cover a wide variety of topics including: Galveston's pirate history; the Galveston jetties; the Galveston reading of the Emancipation Proclamation establishing Juneteenth; the Galveston hurricane of 1900; the Galveston seawall; the history of the Galveston city grade raising; the rock groin fields; and beach nourishment.
Tour stops will include: the Galveston south jetty; grade raising borrow pits; several historical buildings; along with the Galveston seawall and beaches.
[This tour is being organized by: Coraggio Maglio, MEng, P.E., Vice President, Water & Coastal Resources Business Line Lead, DCCM]
Technical Tour: Houston Ship Channel and Port Houston Boat Tour
(ticket required)
Wednesday, May 20, 2026 | 12:30 – 6:30 p.m. (6 hours)
$100 EB / $125 ADV / $125 ONS
3.5 PDHs
Due to limited participant capacity, this boat tour is non-refundable once purchased. You may transfer it to another attendee if you are unable to attend.
*** capacity 100 participants ***
Port Houston owns, manages, and operates eight public terminals — Barbours Cut, Bayport, Care, Jacintoport, Old Manchester, Southside, Turning Basin, and Woodhouse — along the 52-mile Houston Ship Channel (HSC). These terminals and over 200 private docks and berthing areas along the HSC provide the infrastructure for the No. 1 port for waterborne tonnage and No. 5 for TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent units) in the United States, supports more than three million United States jobs, generates $906 billion in national economic benefits, and provides nearly $63 billion in annual tax revenue.
As the local sponsor of the HSC, Port Houston is preparing now for the future needs of vessels and businesses, and with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers-Galveston District (USACE-SWG) is accelerating the HSC expansion, also known as Project 11 (federally identified as the Houston Ship Channel Expansion Channel Improvement Project [ECIP]). Project 11, the 11th major improvement project in the HSC history, includes widening the channel by 170 feet (from 530 to 700 feet) along its Galveston Bay reach, widening the Bayport and Barbours Cut Channels to 455 feet, deepening some upstream segments (up to -46.5 feet Mean Lower Low Water [MLLW]), making other safety and efficiency improvements, and constructing new environmental features. Port Houston and USACE-SWG have committed approximately 20 million cubic yards from Project 11 to beneficially create approximately 10-acres of bird islands, 276-acres of intertidal marsh, and 324-acres of oyster reefs.
The roundtrip project tour will originate from the San Jacinto Battleground State Historic Site, entrance into the Port Houston Barbours Cut Terminal channel, and include a narrative tour from the Port Houston and engineering team that worked on the project.
[This tour is being organized by: Lori Brownell, P.E., BC.NE, F.ASCE, Chief Channel Infrastructure Officer, Port Houston; Ashley Judith, P.E., BC.NE, M.ASCE, KIEWIT; Cameron Perry, P.E., Coastal Technical Director, HDR Engineering, Inc.; David Broyles, P.E., Ports and Maritime Project Engineer, HDR Engineering, Inc.; Chester Hedderman, P.E., PLS, Project Engineer, Gahagan & Bryant-AECOM; and Matt McCollum, Ports and Navigation Engineer, AECOM]