Landscape Architecture

ASLA Forms New Working Group to Advance Landscape Architecture 2040 Commitment Program

12/15/202512/15/2025Jared GreenLeave a comment

ASLA 2025 Professional General Design Honor Award. Mill 19: A Catalytic Postindustrial Landscape. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. TEN x TEN, D.I.R.T. Studio / Gaffer Photography

The working group will lead the development of the landscape architecture field’s first site lifecycle assessment (SLCA) methodology guide and benchmarking study

ASLA has announced a new working group of its Climate & Biodiversity Committee will develop an industry-wide guide on what to measure when calculating the greenhouse gas emissions and sequestration opportunities of sites. The methodology guide for Site Lifecycle Assessments (SLCA) will cover what to measure for many types of landscape architecture projects, including those with civil engineering components.

Currently, there is no standard methodology for what to include or exclude when calculating a SLCA. Landscape architects and civil engineers have been modeling embodied carbon impacts and sequestration opportunities over the last couple years without a standard industry methodology or reporting structure. This lack of guidance and consistent collection of data means there are not consistent benchmarks for the embodied carbon of sites.

To align system boundaries across the industry, the methodology guide will formalize standards in scope, process, and reporting for SLCAs. The guide will also standardize how project and landscape types are categorized. This will enable landscape architects to better align data analysis and carbon sequestration estimates when benchmarking.

The methodology guide will support the creation of the first industry-wide benchmark for landscape architecture projects. This SLCA benchmarking study will enable landscape architecture and civil engineering firms to evaluate their emissions based on benchmarks and in turn set clear emission reduction targets for projects.

“This work is the critical next step in developing a Landscape Architecture 2040 Commitment Program,” said Aida Curtis, FASLA, Chair, ASLA Climate & Biodiversity Action Committee. “This group of leading landscape architects and carbon experts will help our community better understand what project emissions to measure and how to report and create a new industry-wide site carbon benchmark. We need to know what to measure – and what to measure against – so we can cut our project emissions and scale up sequestration faster.”

The working group was formed by the ASLA Climate & Biodiversity Action Committee Climate Subcommittee and includes:

Alejandra Hinojosa, Affil. ASLA, LPA (Working Group Co-Chair)
Meg Calkins, FASLA, North Carolina State University, and Task Force Chair, ASLA Climate & Biodiversity Action Plan (Working Group Co-Chair)
Pamela Conrad, ASLA, Climate Positive Design
Chris Hardy, ASLA, Sasaki and Carbon Conscience
Mariana Ricker, ASLA, SWA and Climate Lead, ASLA Climate & Biodiversity Task Force

The group will include representatives from the Carbon Leadership Forum and the civil engineering field.

The working group will also collaborate with a practice group of landscape architecture and civil engineering firms, including representatives from the CEO Roundtable, who will serve as peer reviewers. Landscape architecture firm SWA formed the practice group.

This effort is part of Landscape Architecture 2040: Climate & Biodiversity Action Plan, which guides the landscape architecture community’s efforts from 2026 to 2030. The plan calls for all landscape architecture projects to achieve zero emissions and double carbon sequestration from business as usual by 2040. It includes action items that call for the development of a methodology guide and benchmarking study.

This effort also builds on the foundation laid by ASLA’s inaugural Biodiversity & Climate Action Fellow Pamela Conrad, ASLA. During her fellowship, Conrad developed a forward-looking Commitment Program roadmap that advances ASLA’s climate and biodiversity goals, including the development of tools like Climate Positive Design’s Pathfinder, which helps landscape architects assess greenhouse gas emissions and also now biodiversity, equity, cooling, and water conservation. Her earlier fellowship work resulted in the guide WORKS with Nature: Low-Carbon Adaptation Techniques for a Changing World, which provides global examples of nature-based solutions.

COP30 Elevated the Role of Tropical Forests, Indigenous Peoples, and Cities

12/09/202512/10/2025The Dirt ContributorLeave a comment

COP30 entrance in Belém, Brazil / © M. T. Kubo

By Marcelo Tomé Kubo

Last month, the 30th UN Climate Change Conference (COP30) was held in Belém, Brazil. It was hosted by the country with the most biodiverse flora known to science. And in the Amazon region, home of the largest tropical rainforest in the world and more than 180 Indigenous peoples.

For two weeks, leaders, scientists, representatives of diverse organized civil societies, and activists assessed our commitments, plans, and actions to combat climate change. As a Brazilian landscape architect, urbanist, and botanist, it was a privilege to attend a COP in my own country and with such an ambitious aim: to be the COP of implementation.

There was much anticipation that there would be important and concrete steps to phase out fossil fuels, and much frustration when this goal was not mentioned in the final document. Still, just being on the table for discussion is already a win, and the Brazilian COP presidency will continue to advocate for this objective until the next COP in Turkey next year.

In my view, Brazil, as host country, was determined to leave its mark in the history of COPs and lead by example. Three points called my attention during my participation and I believe will have a major impact in Brazil but also reverberate globally: the Tropical Forest Forever Facility; the participation of Indigenous peoples; and the leading role of subnational governments.

Tropical Forest Forever Facility

Atlantic Rainforest in Brazil, the most endangered biome in the country / © M. T. Kubo

The importance of tropical rainforests for climate regulation, food and water security, and many other ecosystem services is widely known in scientific publications. A recent study assessing the natural capital of tropical forests in the Amazon found crop pollination services alone are worth over US$4 million. Carbon storage can be over 200 metric tonnes per hectare, and the Amazon decreases local temperatures by 0.4°C (0.72°F). Some of the Amazon’s value, such as its cultural value and the sense of belonging it creates, is intangible.

In the same study, the researchers estimated these services depend on the preservation of almost 85 percent of the Amazon’s species and that 60 percent of them are irreplaceable. Still, deforestation for cattle, monoculture farming, and mining continues to threaten the ecosystem.

Brazil understands that the protection of the standing tropical forests is vital in our struggle to mitigate the impacts of climate change and secure ecosystem services. So it launched an initiative at COP30 called the Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF).

This new financing mechanism aims to reward Tropical Forest Countries that protect and conserve their forests by providing a long-term and reliable results-based income. Countries will choose how to apply the funds as long as it is aligned with TFFF’s conditions. One of those conditions is that a minimum of 20 percent of funds received should be directed to those who have been managing these territories for many generations — Indigenous peoples and local communities.

This new source of funding may give a jump-start to the implementation of ambitious public projects, such as the Jequitibá Park in the Sao Paulo Metropolitan Region. Once finished, it would be the largest environmental urban park in South America at more than 130 hectares. Since 2009, its implementation has suffered from irregular funding. A reliable source of income may ensure the protection of an important remaining fragment of the Atlantic Rainforest.

Elevated walkways in Park Jequitibá / © patricia AKINAGA

Participation of Indigenous Peoples

Italian pavilion session with Indigenous leadership Alda Brazão / © M. T. Kubo

The TFFF recognizes the important role played by Indigenous peoples in the protection of standing forests. Their territories represent around 13 percent of Brazil but harbor 20 percent of native vegetation. From 1985 to 2024, their territories lost less than 1 percent of native vegetation whereas in private rural areas this figure is around 21 percent.

At COP30, we had the largest Indigenous attendance, with over 4,000 people. Brazilian Indigenous peoples demand recognition of their voices, knowledge, diversity – more than 390 peoples and 295 native languages – and leadership in the protection of all Brazilian biomes, including Amazon, Cerrado, Atlantic Rainforest, Pantanal, Caatinga and Pampa.

Throughout the conference, Indigenous peoples and local communities were at negotiations, pavilions, presentations, and gatherings, making sure delegates heard their voices, demands, and solutions.

Meeting some of those demands, the Brazilian government newly recognized four Indigenous lands spanning approximately 2.2 million hectares in the Amazon, and other 10 Indigenous lands in other regions.

The Italian pavilion featured the event Amazon: Strategies and Best Practices to avoid Collapse – a 25-year Experience, with Alda Brazão, Indigenous leadership, showing how responsible tourism and science research can contribute to forest conservation when Indigenous peoples are respected and involved.

Leading Role of Subnational Governments

Park in Goiânia city, central Brazil. The city was designed as a garden city, but real estate pressure has been endangering the remaining green spaces /© R.G.S. Carneiro

On-going masterplan of Goiania’s urban parks using science-based indicators and monitoring to assess the quality and biodiversity of each park / © patricia AKINAGA

“It will be in the cities that we will win or lose the climate agenda,” said UN-HABITAT executive director Anaclaudia Rossbach. The phrase stuck with me after attending multiple sessions of Mutirão (joint effort) with subnational governments on the “integrated local and regional solutions for climate, biodiversity, and land restoration.” The sessions included ICLEI, UN-HABITAT, IPCC, CityWithNature, Brazil’s Ministry of Cities, and Philip Yang, the COP30 Special Envoy for Urban Solutions.

The discussion highlighted examples of successful actions at the local level, demonstrating the crucial role of subnational governments in implementing urban adaptation to climate change, and the need to ensure more direct funding reaches them.

In Brazil, more than 85 percent of the population lives in cities. As part of the Program of Green Resilient Cities, the Brazilian Ministry of Environment and Climate Change launched the National Urban Afforestation Plan (PlaNAU) at COP30. The plan is an effort to empower cities to increase vegetation cover and promote biodiversity.

In the plan, urban afforestation is seen as green infrastructure and a nature-based solution able to respond to urban and climatic challenges. The effort is based in a simple but ambitious rule: 3-30-300.

Each person should see 3 trees from home, each neighborhood must have 30 percent vegetation cover, and nobody should live more than 300 meters away from a public green space. It is a monumental task. Looking at just one of those parameters: less than half of our urban population have 3 or more trees on their street. Brazilian landscape architects will play an important role in changing this.

This was my first experience at a COP, and it profoundly changed me on many levels. Personally, I have a sense of urgency to take action. I feel that one of the most important things to do is to restore our connection to and wonder of the natural world in our daily lives.

As a landscape architect, I feel our role in shaping cities will be decisive. We have the ability to help cities adapt to a changing climate, restore and protect ecosystem services, and design communities where we can co-habitate with nature.

Marcelo Tomé Kubo, International ASLA, PhD, is managing partner at patricia AKINAGA landscape architecture, planning, and urban design. He is also a National Geographic Explorer.

Landscape Architects Can Scale Up Efforts to Measure Progress on Climate Adaptation

12/08/202512/10/2025The Dirt ContributorLeave a comment

ASLA 2010 Professional General Design Honor Award. Underwood Family Sonoran Landscape Laboratory. Tucson, Arizona. Ten Eyck Landscape Architects, Inc. / Bill Timmerman

By Meg Calkins

Humanity is now bending the greenhouse gas emissions curve downward for the first time but not fast enough. Global emissions are only estimated to decrease by 10 percent by 2035. As we fall short of emissions targets, adaptation to climate change is becoming more critical than ever.

Landscape architects have an important role to play here – in using nature-based solutions to help communities reduce emissions and adapt to excess stormwater, extreme heat, and coastal inundation.

Last month, I had the honor to represent ASLA as a designated observer at the 30th United Nations Climate Change conference (COP30) in Belém, Brazil where I advocated for our work on climate resilience and identified ways we can help global efforts to measure adaptation to climate change.

C40 Cities estimates that by 2050, rising sea levels will threaten over 800 billion people in 570 cities around the world, and rising average summer temperatures of over 95F (35C) will threaten 1.2 billion people. The scale of the climate adaption problem is immense, and the only way to know if we are making progress toward climate resilience is to measure key targets.

Progress on Measuring Adaptation

In 2015, the Paris climate agreement set the Global Goal on Adaptation. But targets and indicators for how well a country is adapting to climate change have never been officially established. Determining indicators for tracking progress toward climate adaptation and securing finance for these efforts were key areas of negotiation among countries at COP30.

COP30 room where negotiations on a new Global Adaptation Goal occurred / Meg Calkins, FASLA

But how do countries, regions, and projects measure progress toward climate adaptation? To move forward the Global Goal on Adaptation, negotiators arrived in Belém to debate a list of 100 indicators in eleven categories.

Climate adaptation indicators / UN, graphic updated by Meg Calkins, FASLA

As I followed the discussions, I was astounded at how many of the indicator categories our work as landscape architects touches and how Landscape Architecture 2040: Climate and Biodiversity Action Plan offers detailed actions to achieve many of these indicators.

For over a decade, landscape architects have recognized the importance of measuring the performance of our projects. We collaborate with researchers to measure:

Stormwater quantity and quality
Heat islands
Carbon emissions
Carbon sequestration
Air quality
Biodiversity
Resource efficiency
Waste reduction
Recreation benefits
Health outcomes
Economic benefits

Working with researchers and other professionals, landscape architects have developed many protocols for measuring landscape performance. These techniques are evolving, and new protocols are being developed. We are increasingly measuring our project performance so we can better demonstrate their performance and economic benefits to policymakers and clients.

ASLA 2022 Landmark Award. Crissy Field: An Enduring Transformation. San Francisco, California. Hargreaves Jones

We can potentially broaden our role in addressing climate adaptation by sharing our techniques with local, state, and federal governments around the world. The time is right because policymakers are now beginning to measure progress toward the 59 voluntary adaptation indicators that were approved by the end of the conference.

Finance for Nature-based Solutions and Adaptation

Landscape architects’ challenge in implementing nature-based solutions is often financial. So we must continue to make the economic case for these solutions over traditional gray infrastructure.

The two presentations I gave at COP30 focused on the economic benefits realized from landscape architect-designed nature-based solutions. These benefits include reduced damage costs from severe weather events, economic development around publicly accessible sites, and increased human health outcomes from cleaner air and access to nature.

Some of the statistics I emphasized:

A recent study by the World Resources Institute found that every dollar spent on climate adaptation can create more than $10 in benefits over 10 years. These benefits are environmental, social and economic.
Nature-based solutions can be constructed for 5-30% less and maintained for 25% less than traditional gray infrastructure.
The World Bank estimates that a $1 investment in nature-based adaptation for climate change results in $4 of environmental, social, and economic benefits through avoided losses and reduced risk.
The Trust for Public Land reports that investments in parks and green space can generate between $4 and $11 for every dollar invested, due to increased tourism, improved property values, and enhanced community health.

Meg Calkins, FASLA, presenting at COP30. **Watch video clip** / Resilience Hub

Finance was also a sticking point for the COP30 adaptation indicators. Several Least Developed Countries (LDCs) tied climate finance shortfalls to indicator negotiations. Climate impacts fall disproportionately on LDCs even though the US, the UK, Europe, and China have been the major GHG emitters.

At COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan last year, the developed world, including the EU, UK, US, and Japan, agreed to help raise at least $300 billion per year by 2035 for climate action in developing countries. But at COP30, LDCs maintained that this target is not enough and the final Belém Package agreement tripled developed countries’ commitment to adaptation funding by 2035. This increased funding could lead to additional work for landscape architects worldwide.

Subnational Climate Leadership for Resilience

This was the first time since the inaugural COP in 1995 that the US did not send an official delegation to Belém. The US pulled out of the Paris Agreement for the second time this year, although climate action is increasing in several US states and cities.

Subnational climate leadership was emphasized by many speakers and policymakers at COP30. California Governor Gavin Newsom and New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham both spoke about the climate policies they have put in place in their states, including solutions for climate adaptation through provision of ecosystem services, and climate mitigation through renewable energy and low carbon construction material policies.

Landscape architects have long recognized the importance of local climate leadership because many of our projects are urban and suburban. Every one of our projects that include climate resilience strategies is a form of climate advocacy. Therefore, making connections with local policymakers, publicizing our work in mainstream publications, and measuring project benefits will broaden our role in addressing the climate crisis.

Meg Calkins, FASLA, meeting with Anacláudia Rossbach, UN Undersecretary General and Executive Director of UN-Habitat

Given 60 percent of the area projected to be urban by 2050 has yet to be built, we have a tremendous opportunity to contribute to climate resilience through our landscape architecture and community design work.

Meg Calkins, FASLA, FCELA, is chair of the Task Force that developed Landscape Architecture 2040: Climate & Biodiversity Action Plan. She is author of Details and Materials for Resilient Sites: A Climate Positive Approach.

Best Books of 2025

12/07/202512/19/2025Jared GreenLeave a comment

THE DIRT’s 10 best books of 2025 explore landscape from new and fascinating angles. Delve into books published this year on low-carbon materials, shade, traditional ecological knowledge, and more.

Carbon: The Book of Life
Viking, 2025

Carbon is often thought of as a pollutant. But in his latest book, environmentalist and author Paul Hawken, founder of Project Drawdown, reframes carbon as an essential building block of life. He explains Earth’s carbon flows and how they are key to regenerating the planet.

Design Against Racism: Creating Work That Transforms Communities
Princeton Architectural Press, 2025

This collection of essays curated by Omari Souza, an organizer of the State of Black Design conference, looks at how design professions have extended colonial thinking, reinforced biases, and created negative impacts on historically marginalized and underserved communities. It also offers a positive vision of design inclusion, accountability, and activism.

Details and Materials for Resilient Sites: A Climate Positive Approach
Routledge, 2025

Meg Calkins, FASLA, professor at NC State University, has written the go-to book on how designed landscapes can store more greenhouse gases than they emit. She argues that low-carbon materials are important, but so is “how we assemble them. Our site structures must be durable, flexible, repairable, and living structures.”

Is a River Alive?
W.W. Norton & Company, 2025

In his evocative new book, British nature writer Robert Macfarlane journeys through Ecuador, India, and Canada, tracing the global movement to designate rivers as living entities with legal rights. “I prefer to speak of rivers who flow,” he writes.

Land Power: Who Has It, Who Doesn’t, and How That Determines the Fate of Societies
Basic Books, 2025

Historical patterns of land dispossession and settlement, use and management have led to gender and racial inequities and environmental degradation, argues Michael Albertus, a professor at the University of Chicago. He finds hope in contemporary land restitution, reparation, and reallocation efforts around the world.

Lo―TEK. Water. A Field Guide for TEKnology
Taschen, 2025

Landscape designer, educator, and author Julia Watson, ASLA, has followed-up on her best-selling book Lo–TEK with a new field guide that offers strategies on how to apply traditional ecological knowledge to manage water. Lo–TEK Water is beautifully-designed, rich with images and informative graphics, and a must-have for any designer seeking to learn from the genius of Indigenous designers.

Marginlands: A Journey into India’s Vanishing Landscapes
Milkweed Editions, 2025

Through photography, drawing, reporting, and personal reflection, Arati Kumar-Rao, an artist and National Geographic Explorer, tells the stories of marginalized landscapes and peoples across India. To save these places, we must listen to these communities and understand their knowledge of these ecosystems.

Shade: The Promise of a Forgotten Natural Resource
Random House, 2025

Ancient communities in Mesopotamia, Northern Africa, and Greece once built their cities to maximize shade, argues environmental journalist Sam Bloch. But in the U.S. today it has increasingly become a privilege of the wealthy. He looks at how community leaders, planners, and landscape architects are leading efforts to cool some of the places most impacted by heat.

The Genius of Trees: How They Mastered the Elements and Shaped the World
Crown, 2025

Trees aren’t passive bystanders but have actively shaped Earth according to their own “tree-ish” agenda, argues British tree scientist Harriet Rix. Over millions of years, they have “woven the world,” transforming what was once an inhospitable, storm-ravaged, and rocky planet into a place of beauty and diversity.

Under the Campus, the Land: Anishinaabe Futuring, Colonial Non-Memory, and the Origin of the University of Michigan
University of Michigan Press, 2025

Andrew Herscher, a professor at the University of Michigan, uses in-depth research to document how the Anishinaabe people granted the land to form the university but never received the educational benefits they were promised. This excellent book provides a model for how other universities and institutions can create truer histories and begin to undo past harms to Indigenous peoples.

Buying these books through THE DIRT or ASLA’s online bookstore benefits ASLA educational programs.

The Neighborhood Climate Park

12/02/202512/05/2025Jared GreenLeave a comment

Grønningen-Bispeparken, Copenhagen, Denmark. SLA / SLA

In the Nordvest neighborhood of Copenhagen, Denmark, a derelict lawn in a social housing estate from the 1950s has been transformed into a climate park designed to manage vast amounts of water. Grønningen-Bispeparken is a masterwork of multipurpose design: it protects the community from flooding while increasing biodiversity and providing social and play spaces.

According to landscape architecture firm SLA, the 5-acre park is the city’s “most radical nature-based climate adaptation project to date.” In recognition of its forward-thinking nature, the park won this year’s International Rosa Barba Landscape Prize.

“Grønningen-Bispeparken … encourages us all to get to work, adapting our cities to a changing climate, with the clarity of [its] design process and a concept that is replicable, plus an outcome that is both transformative and beautiful,” said Kate Orff, FASLA, chair of the prize jury and founder of SCAPE.

SLA said the original green spaces, designed by famed Danish landscape architect C.Th. Sørensen, had “fallen into unsafe disrepair with no activities, use, or play areas for local kids and residents.” Lawns were “unable to manage or contain rainwater – resulting in ‘rainwater motorways’ during thunderstorms – while also being very low on plant variation, wildlife, and biodiversity.”

Their solution was to sculpt the flat lawn into sloping green areas that collect, contain, and infiltrate the 32,000-square feet of stormwater that hits the park and surrounding streets and courtyards.

Grønningen-Bispeparken collecting stormwater, Copenhagen, Denmark. SLA / Marie Damsgaard

They accomplished this through an “interconnected series” of 18 bioswales that serve both a climate and social purpose. The swales steer water in the landscape and provide a framework for “playful, nature-rich, and safe meeting places for community and togetherness.”

Swales forming outdoor rooms at Grønningen-Bispeparken, Copenhagen, Denmark. SLA / SLA

Bioswales create the boundaries of outdoor rooms with different functions. Some spaces are designed to collect water and are just for nature and wildlife. Others are designed not to accumulate water but to serve as play spaces, lawns for sports and farmer’s markets, and pocket squares. A disused underground Cold Water bunker forms the foundation of a new hill for lounging in the summer and sledding in the winter.

A path of gravel and yellow-tone pavers recycled from Copenhagen construction sites brings community members through the spaces. In parts of the park, the path is wide and in others it “dissolves” into the landscape and only visible by small lighting bollards.

Grønningen-Bispeparken, Copenhagen, Denmark. SLA / Mikkel Eye

The lawns were replaced with a diverse range of tree and plant species, which contributes to the long-term resilience of the park and community. SLA planted 149 trees from 23 different species and more than 4 million seeds of “specially crafted seed mixtures.” The landscape architects also preserved the park’s buckthorn trees.

“Solutions that support local biodiversity are fully integrated into the nature-based climate solutions,” said Sune Rieper, partner with SLA. “During the design process, we mapped existing flora and fauna and ensured the new planting schemes and water systems reinforced them – while also creating optimal conditions for new and more resilient biological life.”

Biodiversity woven throughout Grønningen-Bispeparken, Copenhagen, Denmark. SLA / Marie Damsgaard

There are also cultural layers woven into the new design. In the original park, Sørensen framed views of Copenhagen’s Grundtvig’s Church. SLA preserved those views with its new trees and park design. Also incorporated are new functional wood artworks by Kerstin Bergendal, crafted with landscape studio Efterland. The artist worked with SLA to integrate the structures into the park, making exercise and play spaces mini-destinations.

Wood artwork by Kerstin Bergendal, with Efterland. Grønningen-Bispeparken, Copenhagen, Denmark. SLA / Kobenhavs Kommune

Wood artwork by Kerstin Bergendal, with Efterland. Grønningen-Bispeparken, Copenhagen, Denmark. SLA / Mikkel Eye

To lower the carbon footprint of the project, SLA reused on-site materials and surplus construction materials from the City of Copenhagen as much as possible, reducing transportation emissions. “All the soil and clay we used to shape the mounds and bioswales are from the site. We also retained several existing and quite old concrete retaining walls and used some of the concrete materials in new ways,” said Bjørn Ginman, senior lead designer at SLA.

“Granite stones from old stair treads were used as informal and rough paving in several of the bioswales. All the classic Copenhagen benches throughout the park are reused. And selected stones and bricks from the city’s many construction sites were placed and used for paving throughout the park.”

Ginman said “the [greenhouse gas] emissions agenda really accelerated during the 5-plus years we were developing the project. In hindsight, we probably wouldn’t have cast the new retaining walls in concrete. Today, we would use alternative materials like rammed earth or similar. However, we did manage to reduce several planned walls.”

Rieper hopes the park will spur on broader changes. “It is less about how the project looks and more about how it feels and how it functions. We hope the prize will encourage the entire construction industry to be even more ambitious in creating space for all life in our cities – social, biological, and cultural,” he said.

SLA explained that five days after the park opened in 2024, a major thunderstorm hit Copenhagen, flooding highways. But the rain only made Grønningen-Bispeparken “more lush and beautiful” and its surrounding buildings and infrastructure remained dry. All communities facing flooding need a smart, multilayered park like this one.

Beauty and Biodiversity

11/18/202511/21/2025Jared GreenLeave a comment

Brooklyn Botanic Garden New Jersey Pinelands Garden, Brooklyn, NY / Uli Lorimer

“We decided to focus on the role of beauty,” explained Maria Landoni, ASLA, PLA, founder of Sur Landscape Architecture and curator of an online discussion organized by the ASLA Climate & Biodiversity Action Committee.

Beauty plays an important role — it helps people emotionally connect to landscapes. Through that connection, people are more likely to value the biodiversity that make places beautiful and functional. And then they are more likely to invest in protecting and restoring landscapes.

Uli Lorimer, director of horticulture with the Native Plant Trust, understands the beauty of wild landscapes and wants to bring that to more American public spaces.

He views this as a critical effort because 30-40 million hectares of native vegetation in the U.S. has been lost to development. “This is equal to all national and state parks combined,” he said. Much of that land has been covered with more than 63,000 square miles of lawn.

Despite this loss of native landscape, the U.S. is still an ecologically rich place. There are more than 20,000 native tree and plant species that provide a range of ecological functions — from habitat for pollinators to stormwater management.

To bring more of these beautiful and functional native plants to more people, Lorimer called for applying “ecological horticulture.” This approach involves collecting wild seeds and growing plants from seeds, not cuttings. It supports the genetic diversity of plants, ensuring non-uniformity, resilience, character, and climate adaptation. “Look at skunk cabbage that grows in the wild — no two flowers are the same.”

At the Brooklyn Botanic Garden in New York City, where Lorimer once was a gardener, the team designed a garden based on the New Jersey Pinelands, a unique 1.1 million acre ecosystem designated by UNESCO as Biosphere region. They used ecological horticulture and transfered some of the wild beauty of the pinelands to the garden in Brooklyn, a space surrounded by tall buildings.

“We intentionally planted small trees, which establish themselves better. We brought in a combination of ruderal and annual plant species, including milkweeds, ashers, and goldenrods” — some of which were cultivated from seeds from the pineland landscape.

Lorimer highlighted the project to raise a key point: “There is a big disconnect between beauty and diversity in the wild and what you can purchase for projects.”

Plants can be propagated from seeds or cuttings. Large-scale nurseries find taking cuttings faster and easier. Seed-grown plants result in diverse sizes and are therefore seen as riskier. “Most plants are cultivated to be pretty, not for ecological function. These plants do next to nothing for pollinators, like the 4,000 species of bees in North America, 25 percent of which are specialists that rely on particular plants.”

The Native Plant Trust, where Lorimer currently works, grows all plants from seeds. Three-fourths of seeds are collected from the wild. They produce 50,000 plants from 300 species each year, but Lorimer said this is just a very small portion of the total number of plants produced each year. “In some areas of the U.S., like California, there may be many native plant nursery options, but in other areas nothing.” Demanding high-quality, seed-grown native plants will help more people understand their value.

“For a long time, I suffered from plant blindness,” said Dawn Dyer, ASLA, PLA, principal, Studio-MLA. “It’s easy to have a lack of awareness about different types of plants. We are taught in school about animals but not plants.”

The project that helped her see is the Natural History Museum in Los Angeles, where Studio-MLA collaborated with museum scientists, curators, and educators to design multiple gardens to serve as spaces for students, teachers, and visitors. The landscapes’ 14 garden zones offer “tangible experiences” of different Californian habitats.

Natural History Museum in Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California / Studio-MLA

The gardens were designed to be beautiful but also provide food or shelter for birds, butterflies, spiders, insects, and lizards. Dyer focused on four zones Studio-MLA designed: the transition garden, living wall, urban wilderness, and commons. Each garden has a unique plant community.

In the transition garden, silk floss trees attract birds and butterflies. The crevices of the living wall are planted with native dudleya plants and “create microhabitats for lizards and spiders,” and rosemary and grape vines grow along the wall. “Pollinators and birds love it. And people keep stealing the dudleya.” In the urban wilderness, native willows and oaks surround an “ephemeral stream,” providing refuge for a range of species. “When I saw a hawk there, I knew we were successful.”

Living wall at Natural History Museum in Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California / Tom Lamb, courtesy of Studio-MLA

Urban Wilderness at Natural History Museum in Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California / Craig Collins, courtesy of Studio-MLA

Studio-MLA planted more than 600 new plants from 200 species and more than 140 new trees. The new trees helped increase the shade canopy by 50 percent. Approximately 70 percent of the plants are native. “The gardens have led to an increase in biodiversity — naturalists have made more than 11,000 observations of more than 800 species.”

Pollinator Garden at Natural History Museum in Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California / Craig Collins, courtesy of Studio-MLA

The project is designed to help others not be blind to plants. “The hawks, monarch butterflies, and bees show what the plants can do.”

Kelly D. Norris, plantsman and artist, said we have a limited vocabulary when trying to describe the beauty of landscapes. “We need to expand the language of aesthetics and create a pattern language. Designing landscapes is a process: It’s not just about the components of the design but about time; how landscapes change over time and be resilient.” He said the role of the designer is to “align aesthetic intent with ecology.”

The Romp, Three Oaks Garden in Des Moines, Iowa / Kelly D. Norris

Designers will benefit from spending time in nature, reading the landscape. He offered an example of a landscape that had a “collision” of two gradients, which led to different soils, amounts of water, and plant communities. These kinds of collisions inspire Norris — they show that “landscapes aren’t single entities but strands of greater ecological cloth.”

A moisture gradient visible in Nachusa Grasslands, Franklin Grove, Illinois / Kelly D. Norris

Norris showed how he studies the spatial arrangements of plants in the wild to understand how plant density and dispersion changes over time. These quantitative analyses help him create a model for distributing plants in designed landscapes — a model that results in beauty and ecological support. “Resilient plantings emerge when aesthetic principles align with ecological processes,” he said.

Model of density vs dispersion / courtesy of Kelly D. Norris

“Planting is an act of disturbance, in ecological terms. But when we plant with intention, we can have a significant impact on the landscape. We can profoundly change a place.” And in the case of replacing a lawn, change it for the better.

He said “many designers oversimplify because of a fear of complexity.” But designers can lean into the complexity. They can bring density and a diversity of species together, creating visual and ecological complexity. They can create zones that are “aesthetically intricate” but also characterized by “fineness and subtle contrasts.”

Complexity leads to emergence in this residential planting in the Middlebrook Agrihood, Cumming, Iowa / Kelly D. Norris

ASLA 2026 Professional and Student Awards Call for Entries

11/18/202511/18/2025The Dirt ContributorLeave a comment

ASLA 2025 Professional General Design Award of Excellence. A Floating Forest: Fish Tail Park in Nanchang City. Nanchang, Jiangxi Province, China. Turenscape

Showcase the best of landscape architecture—ASLA’s 2026 Professional and Student Awards calls for entries are open.

Professional Awards

The ASLA Professional Awards honor the best built and unbuilt work worldwide. Submit early to save with tiered pricing:

Early Bird deadline: January 9, 2026
ALL materials due (all professional entrants): February 6, 2026, 11:59 p.m. PST
Recognition: Winners are celebrated at the ASLA 2026 Conference on Landscape Architecture and featured in Landscape Architecture Magazine.

ASLA Professional Awards timeline and rates / ASLA

Professional Categories:

General Design
Residential Design
Urban Design
Analysis & Planning
Communications
Research
Landmark Award
ASLA/IFLA Global Impact Award
Community Service and other special recognitions.

Professional Awards Jury Chairs:

General Design, Residential Design, Urban Design, Landmark Award: Adam Greenspan, FASLA — Chair; PWP Landscape Architects (Berkeley, California)
Analysis & Planning, ASLA/IFLA Global Impact Award, Research, Communications, Landmark Award: Sierra Bainbridge, ASLA — Chair; MASS Design Group (Boston, Massachusetts).

Begin your entry and see full details: Professional Awards.

Explore 2025 Professionals Awards winners for inspiration.

ASLA 2025 Student Communications Award of Excellence. Stewards of Pyrran: A Game of Fire, Care, and Cooperation. Sierra Nevada, California. Melissa Tan, Student ASLA; Faculty Advisors: Emily Schlickman, ASLA. University of California, Davis (BSLA)

Student Awards

The ASLA Student Awards spotlight emerging talent and ideas. This year’s cycle is earlier than in previous years, and previously completed projects are eligible.

ALL materials due (all student entrants): February 6, 2026, 11:59 pm PST
Recognition: Student awardees and their advisors are honored at the ASLA 2026 Conference on Landscape Architecture and recognized in Landscape Architecture Magazine.

Student Categories:

General Design
Residential Design
Urban Design
Analysis & Planning
Communications
Research
Student Community Service
Student Collaboration

Student Awards Jury Chairs:

General Design, Residential Design, Urban Design, Student Collaboration:
Ebru Ozer, FASLA — Chair; Florida International University (Miami, Florida)
Analysis & Planning, Communications, Research, Student Community Service:
Nina Chase, ASLA — Chair; Merritt Chase (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania).

Start your submission: Student Awards.

Explore 2025 Student Awards winners for inspiration.

Why submit an award?

Elevate exemplary practice and research across the discipline
Gain national recognition in the profession’s leading platforms
Celebrate with peers, clients, and advisors at the ASLA 2026 Conference on Landscape Architecture.

Key Dates:

Professional Early Bird deadline: January 9, 2026
ALL materials due for both Professional and Student Awards: February 6, 2026, 11:59 p.m. PST.

Central hub for both programs: ASLA 2026 Professional & Student Awards.

Climate & Biodiversity News (November 2025)

11/17/202511/17/2025Jared GreenLeave a comment

COP30 Has Big Plans to Save the Rainforest. Indigenous Activists Say It’s Not Enough, Grist, November 14
The government of Brazil launched the Tropical Forests Forever Facility (TFFF), which aims to provide greater financial incentives to countries to protect their tropical forests. To receive funds from the TFFF, countries will need to pass on 20 percent of what they receive to Indigenous communities. Indigenous groups argue what’s really needed is stronger land rights for Indigenous peoples and greater recognition for the key role they play in managing carbon sinks and biodiversity.

Deadly Heat Worldwide Prompts $300 million for Climate Health Research at COP30, Reuters, November 14
Heat-related deaths have increased more than 20 percent since the 1990s, reaching half a million each year. And wildfire smoke was linked with 150,000 deaths last year. To scale up solutions to extreme heat, air pollution, and climate-sensitive infectious diseases, the Rockefeller Foundation, Bloomberg Philanthropies, and more than 30 other foundations have formed the Climate and Health Funders Coalition, which seeks to accelerate new research, policies, and innovations.

Car-dominant Texas Needs More Public Transit to Meet Mobility Demands, TxDOT Report Says, Texas Tribune, November 11
Texas is developing its first statewide multi-modal transit plan, with new goals for public transportation for rural and smaller urban areas and intercity rail. In a poll commissioned by the department, 86 percent of Texans said it’s “at least somewhat important” to improve the state’s public transportation network. While the plan is viewed as a major step forward, there is skepticism about whether the tens of billions needed for new infrastructure will be budgeted.

The Ground Beneath Our Feet Is the Next Carbon Battleground, Architect, October 30
Meg Calkins, FASLA, professor of landscape architecture and environmental planning at NC State, talks about her new book Details and Materials for Resilient Sites: A Climate Positive Approach. It provides landscape architects with strategies for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and incorporating “resource-efficient materials” and mixes for stone, concrete, asphalt pavement, aggregates, brick, wood, metals, and plastics. “As more than 80% of the life-cycle emissions come from the production, transport, maintenance, and disposal of construction materials, we must radically shift the way we design and detail these sites and infrastructure,” Calkins said.

Biodiversity Gets Its ISO Moment: Nature Accounting Arrives, Forbes, October 20
The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) released a new standard – Biodiversity for Organizations: Guidelines and Requirements – which firms and investors can use to measure, manage, and report on their biodiversity risks. “Until now, there has been no globally agreed standard for integrating biodiversity into strategies and operations. That lack of a common framework has led to fragmented approaches and growing confusion as nature-related risks and expectations increase,” said Noelia Garcia Nebra, head of sustainability and partnerships at ISO.

At COP30, Landscape Architects Will Show How Design Improves Nature-based Solutions to Climate Change and Biodiversity Loss

11/10/202511/11/2025Jared GreenLeave a comment

Meg Calkins (left); Marcelo Tomé Kubo (center); Kotchakorn Voraakhom (right)

Delegates will highlight the key role of landscape architecture strategies in increasing resilience for people and communities

ASLA will be represented by three delegates at COP30 in Belém, Brazil. This is the fourth year ASLA has been an NGO observer to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Conference of Parties (COP) process.

ASLA’s delegates:

Meg Calkins, FASLA, FCELA, Professor of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning, North Carolina State University, and Chair, ASLA Climate & Biodiversity Action Plan Task Force. Focuses on nature-based climate mitigation strategies, author of Details and Materials for Resilient Sites: A Climate Positive Approach, and a founding member of the Sustainable SITES Initiative (SITES).
Marcelo Tomé Kubo, International ASLA, PhD, landscape architect, urban planner, and botanist and managing partner, Patricia Akinaga Landscape Architecture, Environmental Planning, and Urban Design. Focuses on urban nature-based solutions and Brazilian flora diversity and evolution and has been a National Geographic Explorer since 2021.

And the landscape architect delegate of the Government of Thailand:

Kotchakorn Voraakhom, International ASLA, Founder, Landprocess and Porous CIty Network; Chair, Climate Change and Biodiversity Working Group, International Federation of Landscape Architects (IFLA). Focuses on lifting up Global South voices on climate adaptation and nature-based solutions since COP26 (2021).

“Brazil has hosted this COP at the gateway to the Amazon rainforest because they know climate and nature are interconnected. Landscape architects also know that the problems and solutions to the climate and biodiversity crises must be addressed together,” said ASLA CEO Torey Carter-Conneen, Hon. ASLA. “This is the year when we need to scale up investment in nature-based solutions that increase our ability to adapt to climate change, create gains in biodiversity, and lead to economic growth.”

“Landscape architecture helps ensure nature-based solutions provide even greater adaptation and resilience benefits for urban, suburban, and rural communities,” Calkins said. “There are now so many smart, proven design approaches worldwide that show how these solutions reduce flood, storm, and heat risks; store carbon; increase biodiversity; and generate economic value. Landscape architects around the globe have proven ability to work with policymakers and communities to design these solutions to create stacked economic, ecosystem, social, and health benefits.”

ASLA 2025 Professional Urban Design Honor Award. China Basin Park: A Dynamic Urban Connector, San Francisco, California. SCAPE

At COP30, ASLA will co-host From Shoreline to Skyline: Resilient Infrastructure, Buildings, and Coastal Planning for a Changing Climate, a session in the Resilience Hub, organized by the Government of Peru, in the Blue Zone on November 13, 7:30 – 8:30 AM EST. The event is co-hosted by Arup, the World Green Building Council, and Centre for Climate Change and Environmental Research (C3ER) at BRAC University.

During the session, Calkins and Voraakhom will outline how landscape architects design nature-based solutions to increase resilience while maximizing the economic and other co-benefits of these solutions at the same time.

Landscape architecture delegates will also present at these blue zone sessions:

Nature at Work: Advancing Climate Resilience through Ecosystem-Based Solutions
Government of Thailand Pavilion, Blue Zone, November 11, 11:30 AM – 12:30 PM EST

Highlights Canadian and Brazilian leadership in landscape-based adaptation, showcasing cross-sector approaches that integrate biodiversity, infrastructure, and local livelihoods for resilient development.

Presenters:

Marcelo Tomé Kubo, International ASLA, PhD, American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA)
Alan White, Representative, International Association of Horticultural Producers
Dr. Sitarrine Thongpussawal, Director of Knowledge Development and Dissemination Subdivision, Office of the National Water Resources, Government of Thailand
Kotchakorn Voraakhom, International ASLA, Founder, Landprocess (moderator)

Romi 56, Sao Paulo, Brazil. Patricia Akinaga Landscape Architecture, Environmental Planning, and Urban Design / Marcelo Scandaroli

Undoing the Damage, The Retrofit Urban Revolution with Nature: Action Pathways for Livable, Thriving, and Resilient Cities
Government of Thailand Pavilion, Blue Zone, November 11, 2025, 9:00 to 10:00 AM EST

Explores how urban landscapes can be redesigned to restore ecological function, reduce emissions, and enhance community well-being.

Presenters:

Meg Calkins, FASLA, FCELA, American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA)
Dr. Bruno Marques, President, International Federation of Landscape Architects (IFLA)
Hugh Lim, Executive Director, Centre for Liveable Cities, Singapore
Simone Sandholz, Head of Programme, Urban Futures & Sustainability Transformation, United Nations University (UNU-EHS)
Kotchakorn Voraakhom, International ASLA, Founder, Landprocess (moderator)

Sustainable Amphibious Home: Achieving 13 SDGs in Climate-Vulnerable Bangladesh
Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Pavilion, November 11, 1:20 to 2:20 PM EST

Presenter:

Sharmin Nahar Nipa, Coordinator of Research, Capacity Building & Partnership Development, Centre for Climate Change and Environmental Research (C3ER), BRAC University

Discussant:

Meg Calkins, FASLA, FCELA, American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA)

Water as Leverage
Government of Thailand Pavilion, Blue Zone, November 13, 1:00 PM – 2:30 PM EST

Organized in collaboration with Dutch and Southeast Asian partners, this interactive session will explore how integrated urban water projects can catalyze climate adaptation and equitable urban transformation.

Presenters:

Meike van Ginneken, Special Envoy for International Water Affairs, Kingdom of the Netherlands
Kotchakorn Voraakhom, International ASLA, Founder, Landprocess (moderator)

ASLA 2019 Professional General Design Honor Award. Chulalongkorn University Centenary Park. Bangkok, Thailand. Landprocess / Landprocess, Suratchana Pakavaleetorn

Paris at 10: The 10th Anniversary of the Paris Agreement
Government of Thailand Pavilion, Blue Zone, November 19, 11.30 AM – 12.30 PM EST

Fosters discussion on how ambition, implementation, and equity have evolved over the past decade and what the next phase of global climate cooperation demands.

Susan Biniaz, Principal Deputy Special Envoy for Climate, U.S. Department of State
Michael Weisberg, Deputy Director, Perry World House
Jimena Leiva Roesch, Head of Peace and Sustainable Development, International Peace Institute
Khadeeja Naseem, Senior Advisor on Climate Negotiations, International Peace Institute
Kotchakorn Voraakhom, International ASLA, Founder, Landprocess (moderator)

ASLA 2023 Professional General Design Honor Award. The Meadow at the Old Chicago Post Office. Chicago, Illinois. Hoerr Schaudt / Dave Burk

At COP30, Calkins, Kubo, and Voraakhom will also share the vision outlined in the recently released Landscape Architecture 2040: Climate & Biodiversity Action Plan. They will explain how landscape architects design nature-based solutions to create multiple benefits for people and communities:

1) Strengthened Resilience
Healthy, biodiverse landscapes that store carbon in trees, plants, and soils increase communities’ ability to adapt to climate impacts – such as extreme heat, flooding, drought, and sea level rise. Nature-based solutions can be designed for urban, suburban, and rural communities to bolster resilience over the long-term.

2) Going Beyond Net-Zero
Landscapes are the most efficient way to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions and store carbon. Through smart planning and design, landscapes can achieve zero emissions and double sequestration by 2040.

3) Increased Biodiversity
Nature-positive landscapes are the foundation of terrestrial ecosystems and efforts to achieve the goals of protecting and restoring 30 percent of ecosystems by 2030 (30 x 2030). Biodiverse landscapes are more resilient to climate impacts and better at storing carbon.

4) Improved Health and Livability
Accessible public landscapes, such as parks and recreation areas, provide proven physical and mental health benefits that reduce healthcare costs and increase community cohesion. All communities should benefit from nature-based solutions in an equitable way.

5) Expanded Investment and Sustainable Livelihoods
When woven into communities, nature-based solutions become resilient assets that lead to increased investment in housing, infrastructure, and public amenities, and create sustainable local livelihoods. In the U.S., investments in parks and green space can generate between $4 and $11 for every dollar invested, due to increased tourism, improved property values, and enhanced community health.

Making the Insurance Case for Nature-based Solutions

10/23/202511/02/2025Jared GreenLeave a comment

Nature for Insurance and Insurance for Nature / Environmental Defense Fund

“Landscape architects can play a critical role in building the insurance case for nature-based solutions,” said Talley Burley, manager of climate risk and insurance at the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF).

In an online discussion moderated by ASLA CEO Torey Carter-Conneen, Hon. ASLA, Burley encouraged landscape architects to continue to innovate with these solutions and work with clients to lower risks. “Nature-based solutions are emerging, but replication and scalability remain difficult.”

Over this spring, EDF assembled nearly a hundred experts on insurance and nature-based solutions for a workshop. That dialogue resulted in the report Nature for Insurance and Insurance for Nature. It identified ways to use nature-based solutions to reduce risk and increase insurability. “The goal is to drive a nature-positive approach through insurance.”

The report also highlighted research being conducted by insurers and universities. For example, Swiss Re found that nature-based property protections in Florida, like mangroves and wetlands, reduced the frequency of insurance losses by 40 percent. And a study from University of California Santa Cruz found property protected by mangroves saw a 12 percent reduction in hurricane insurance premiums.

While these studies are promising, nature-based solutions still aren’t well accounted for by insurance companies. This is because “their catastrophe models don’t reflect natural solutions. The use zoomed-out data that is not granular or localized,” Burley said. “Their risk models also aren’t updated regularly. A landscape architecture project may reduce risk in an area, but that isn’t factored into the model and won’t be in a timely way.”

Burley said there are small-scale examples of nature-based solutions reducing risk but insurance discounts for these projects remain nominal. To increase discounts for these solutions, “insurers still need more data. They are looking for: How much less damage is there with nature-based solutions? How consistently do these solutions perform?” This is an area where landscape architecture firms and educators can help.

In an era of growing climate threats, there is a great need for new approaches to insuring property that can reduce risks and costs. In 2023, there were $250 billion in economic damages from storms, floods, wildfires, and other disasters. But insured losses were significantly lower at $95 billion. “Too few people are insured for disaster, and in many communities, it’s difficult to find insurance at all.”

Approximately 85 percent of U.S. homeowners have traditional homeowners’ insurance. But that doesn’t cover flood insurance, which is separate and provided through the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). The cost of both homeowners’ insurance and flood insurance continue to increase.

And in Florida, Louisiana, and California, some insurance companies have pulled back on offering coverage all together, leading to significant losses in property values. “The only way to lower the cost of insurance — and increase access to it — is to lower risk,” Burley said.

Boston’s city government is now investing in city-wide nature-based solutions to lower a range of climate risks. Their goal is to collect enough data to prove the efficacy of these solutions, so they can lower insurance rates for entire neighborhoods and fund multi-billion-dollar, multi-decade-long risk reduction projects.

Christopher Osgood, director of climate resilience for the City of Boston, said the city is facing three significant climate risks: coastal flooding, extreme heat, and increased stormwater.

Coastal flooding is a particular challenge because the city has 47 miles of coastline and much of the interior of the city is in the floodplain, which will only expand with sea level rise. The city is focused on current flooding, anticipated flood pathways in the city by 2030, and then transforming the entire city’s coastline.

The city has already undertaken more than decade of planning to reduce risks. The city has worked with leading landscape architecture firms like SCAPE, Sasaki, and Stoss Landscape Urbanism to develop plans that leverage a mix of nature-based and grey solutions.

ASLA 2022 Professional Analysis and Planning Honor Award. Moakley Park Resilience Plan. Boston, Massachusetts. Stoss Landscape Urbanism

“Now we are embarking on a decade of implementation,” Osgood said. Across the city, demonstration projects and data collection on flood risks and the efficacy of these projects are underway. More than a dozen short- and long-term projects to reduce flooding are in progress, including parks, shorelines, sea walls and storm surge barriers, and deployable flood walls.

Resilient Boston Harbor Vision, Boston, Massachusetts / SCAPE

Boston is collaborating with federal and state governments, local municipalities, transportation system authorities, and public and private property owners to plan, design, and finance district-scale investments. “The complexity of financing, ownership, and context is driving the way we are approaching this work,” Osgood said.

Boston’s interest in nature-based solutions for flood reduction is also driving new conversations with insurance companies. In the near-term, the city seeks to accelerate recovery for individuals, families, and communities that experience flooding. “This involves Boston joining the Community Rating System in which communities can accrue points for risk reduction efforts.”

“If communities achieve a certain level of points, there is a reduction in the cost of insurance. Part of this is ensuring that nature-based solutions like habitat restoration are properly scored, so all the work landscape architects do can go to accruing points.” Parametric insurance is another short-term approach the city is looking into.

In the mid-term, Boston is looking at how to reduce the consequences of flooding on a property insurance level. “This entails retrofits to property to reduce the costs of insurance.”

And over the long-term, the goal with insurance companies is to “reduce the probability of flooding,” he said. “How do we think of the insurance sector as a potential source of support for these larger-scale, multi-billion dollar, multi-decade projects across the city? This involves collaborating with other sectors to reduce the likelihood of climate impacts.”

“There is work we need to do to create a causal link between lower risk and nature-based approaches. We must collect data to show these solutions work — that they reduce risk and improve our neighborhoods. We need to provide quantifiable benefits in the way the insurance industry embraces.”

The need to research the efficacy of these solutions led the City of Boston to partner with the Stone Living Lab, a unique organization that also counts as partners Boston Harbor Now, the University of Massachusetts Boston’s School for the Environment, the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation, the Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs, the National Park Service, and the James M. and Cathleen D. Stone Foundation.

Joe Christo, co-director of the lab, said the lab provides a model for cross-sector collaboration on nature-based solutions. The group has used sites in Boston and eastern Massachusetts to explore solutions that provide multiple co-benefits, like sea walls that also enhance biodiversity.

Living Seawall, East Boston, Massachusetts / Jarrett Brynes

They are also “collecting real-time data, 24/7, 365 days a year” on flooding in East Boston. The lab brings together scientists and policymakers into a network to discuss long-term policy solutions. This kind of collaboration is needed to move forward the case for nature-based solutions with insurers and communities.