2025 Water Wonks Hour Lecture Series #1: The History of flooding. The Edwards Plateau: Land Water and Development

Bio: Char Miller is currently the W.M. Keck Professor of Environmental Analysis and History at Pomona College. Prior to moving to California, he taught at Trinity University for 26 years – and loved almost every minute of it! He is the author of the award-winning West Side Rising: How San Antonio’s 1921 Flood Devastated a City and Sparked a Latino Environmental Justice Movement (2021); San Antonio: A Tricentennial History (2018); and San Antonio: Deep in the Heart of South Texas (2004). An earlier version of this talk led to one of his current projects, a biography of William. L. Bray, who taught botany and forest ecology at UT-Austin between 1897-1907. Bray’s pathbreaking research and writing on early twentieth century human demands on the Edwards Plateau’s natural resources, and their downstream consequences, have had a profound impact on how we continue to think about this vast terrain.

Synopsis: The Edwards Plateau is one of the dominant landforms in Texas, encompassing a massive 24 million acres. Its impact extends far beyond its central location, as it is also the source of water for all species inhabiting this rugged terrain and those that draw upon the many rivers and creeks that cut through the Balcones Escarpment and run south and east toward the Gulf of Mexico. Environmental historian Char Miller is as interested in these geological and geographical features as he is by their reciprocal relationships. He is even more engaged by the human experiences of them, from the early twentieth century to the present which he captures through the use of maps and other illustrative material.