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City and UT Austin outline CoLab projects to translate climate science into municipal planning
Summary
City officials described the UT City CoLab, a three-year city-funded collaboration with the University of Texas that produces downscaled climate projections and pilot projects (digital twins, cool pavement, forest health) intended to inform department decisions and support federal grant competitiveness.
City staff and university researchers told the Climate, Water, Environment & Parks Committee on Jan. 28 that the UT City CoLab connects local government needs with UT Austin research to produce practical climate tools and pilot projects.
Zach Ballmer, director of Austin Climate Action and Resilience, said the CoLab is funded through an interlocal agreement with UT and currently operates on roughly $300,000 in city support. Projects must attach to a city decision or program, have both a city and UT contact, and aim to produce actionable outputs. Mark Coudair and Dr. Dave Niyogi presented climate projections and several project examples.
Why it matters: Presenters argued that locally downscaled climate data and rapid pilots make Austin more competitive for federal grants and give departments tailored data products for operations (for example, wildfire prescribed-burn timing, digital-twin tools for building energy, and cool-pavement temperature analysis).
Project highlights included a cool-pavement pilot in southeast Austin that uses thermal cameras and air-quality sensors to compare treated and untreated road sections; early results suggest overnight temperature reductions with potential daytime trade-offs, and staff emphasized combining reflective surfaces with trees. Other projects include forest-health monitoring with satellite and AI, demolition-permit carbon accounting, an Austin Digital Twin (NIST-related), and indoor-heat tracking for weatherization programs.
Presenters said the CoLab has attracted external funding and recognition (NASA, NOAA, NSF, UNESCO) and that the program expects to support roughly 10 projects a year as funding grows. Committee members asked how operations teams receive tailored data; presenters said the CoLab tailors cadence and resolution to operational needs and runs scenario-based exercises with emergency-management and fire teams.
The briefing closed with a commitment to share pilot reports (for example, the cool-pavement assessment) when finalized; staff did not ask the committee for action during the presentation.
