Building and innovating upon McHarg’s ecological survey: the Texas case

Abstract

Ian McHarg provided critical direction toward Texas’s urban settlement planning during the 1970s, an era of transformation and vision, in which he developed the Lake Austin Growth Management Plan and a plan for The Woodlands. Texas continues to undergo dramatic changes, with a projected doubling of population by 2050 and escalation of extreme weather events. In response, the University of Texas at Austin recently launched Planet Texas 2050 (PT2050), a decade-long grand challenge research program focused on developing knowledge and strategies needed to plan for resilience in the face of climate and population change. This article investigates the following research question: How does Planet Texas 2050 build and innovate upon McHarg’s ecological survey method for the purpose of planning a resilient Texas? I analyze McHarg’s ecological survey method and use the examples from The Woodlands and Planet Texas 2050 to explore the development of a socio-ecological survey. This investigation identifies several findings relevant for research and practice. It is possible that earlier and better integration of social data into The Woodlands’ ecological survey may have helped the planning team anticipate objections which influenced the abandonment of ecological planning for the second phase of The Woodlands’ development, resulting in a loss of ecosystem services. Almost 50 years later, Planet Texas 2050 has attempted to build a dynamic socio-ecological survey that integrates diverse socio-ecological data, co-produces socio-ecological knowledge with the public, and incorporates socio-ecological data from the past. Although PT2050 may fall short of its ambitious goal to ensure a resilient Texas by mid-century, growing system complexity and socio-ecological change ensure that surveys, such as McHarg’s ecological survey and Planet Texas 2050s socio-ecological survey, will remain a key component of future resilience planning.