Besides recovery from the Deepwater Horizon disaster, they include reversal of long-term habitat loss, nutrient over-enrichment, overuse, coastal development’s impacts and climate effects, one oceanographer told attendees. A report by Austin writer Melissa Gaskill.

The recommendations from Rice University researchers include a Houston Ship Channel floodgate, new levees, a wetlands recreation area to buffer against storm surges and a sharply limited focus for new Galveston development.

With sustainably-minded design features, the facility will provide assorted amenities near the city’s Arts District. Dallas-based journalist Barbara Kessler details the project in an article and a video report.

Without costly, multiple actions, Texas won’t have enough water to meet the needs of residents, businesses and agriculture during a serious drought, the agency warns in the draft of its 2012 State Water Plan.

The state ranking is based on new, industry-reported data that the EPA said can help communities identify emission sources, assist businesses in tracking emissions and provide information to state and local governments.

One new report: “Following a relatively wet finish to 2011, the return of warm, dry weather to the nation’s southern tier could be suggestive of an increasingly La Niña-driven atmospheric regime.”

Officials of the state agency “fully expect” more tree deaths if the drought continues. Meanwhile, a NASA study projected massive changes in ecosystems in many parts of the world as a result of manmade climate change.

Texas’ wildfires helped set a new national disaster record. State park officials appealed for public support. NASA mapped groundwater’s “severe” depletion. Grid operators warned of possible trouble in 2012. And more.

The National Weather Service’s seasonal outlook calls for Texas’ record-setting drought “to persist or intensify” this winter. And a new international report sees more dry conditions as climate change progresses in decades ahead.

Groesbeck, a small town east of Waco and the county seat of Limestone County, is one of 18 Texas communities on the state’s “high priority” water list – cities and towns that could run out of water within 180 days.