Flood Risk Is Widespread in the U.S. Few People Have Insurance for It, NPR, July 14
There is a major flood insurance gap: the vast majority of U.S. counties have experienced flooding over the past few decades, but only 4 percent of homeowners have federal or private flood insurance. One estimate found that a flood insurance policy can be an additional 30 to 75 percent on top of standard homeowners insurance.

I’m a Climate Scientist in Texas. Here’s What the Floods Tell Us, Time, July 10
Katherine Hayhoe, chief scientist for The Nature Conservancy, argues that climate change isn’t creating new risks but amplifying existing ones. “We need to prepare for what’s coming, not just what’s happened before. That means that we need more data, more expertise, more preparation, more communication, and more follow through, to keep people safe.”

What’s Holding Back Natural Climate Solutions?, Mongabay, July 14
New research from the University of Colorado at Boulder analyzed 352 peer-reviewed studies from 135 countries and documented nearly 2,500 barriers to implementing natural climate solutions. They found that “insufficient funding, patchy information, ineffective policies, and public skepticism” were top obstacles to achieving more nature-based solutions like reforestation and wetland restoration.

Baltimore’s Wetlands Restoration Pushes Ahead Despite Federal Funding Setbacks, Inside Climate News, July 13
The Middle Branch Resiliency Initiative, planned and designed by landscape architects at Field Operations, with Mahan Rykiel, DesignJones LLC, Kofi Boone, FASLA, NC State University, and The Urban Studio, lost $32 million in grant funding when the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) program was cut. The state of Maryland, local agencies, and private philanthropies have made up much of the shortfall.

As Nations Lag on Climate Action, Their Cities Are Stepping Up. Here’s Proof, Grist, July 2
Three-quarters of the world’s leading cities that are part of the C40 network are cutting greenhouse gas emissions faster than their national governments. A new report found that while global emissions continue to increase, per capita emissions across these leading cities fell 7.5 percent on average between 2015 and 2024.

European Union Targets 90% Cut in Emissions by 2040 as Green Groups Cry Foul, The Guardian, July 2
The new approach, which allows for the purchase of carbon offsets from other countries, raises concerns about whether true greenhouse emission cuts will be achieved. The EU has to submit a new climate plan before COP30 in Brazil later this year.

Research on climate change, biodiversity loss, and systemic inequities is being undermined. But there are still “crevices, nooks, and crannies” where important independent research is being conducted. “We need to nurture, protect, and enable these ‘petri dishes,’ no matter how small,” said Lucinda Sanders, FASLA, CEO of OLIN, during the kick-off of the Landscape Architecture Foundation (LAF)’s latest Leadership and Innovation Symposium.

“We need to super-commit and do the hard work. We need to be action-oriented and advocates for healing. Respect, dignity, and love are foundational to our survival.”

Sanders introduced the latest class of six LAF Leadership and Innovation Fellows. They outlined the result of their year-long research, envisioning positive new futures in the areas of infrastructure, policy, public engagement, and agriculture:

“We are losing the cultural war on climate change because of a lack of effective communications,” argued David Buckley Borden, senior advisor of creative practice and innovation, Center for the Future of Forests and Society, Oregon State University, and associate research professor, University of Oregon College of Design. “Landscape architects can better engage the scientific community to close the science-communications gap. Landscape architects can contribute to expanding public eco-literacy.”

Site-based learning about climate change and biodiversity exists only in the margins, in “bougie garden festivals,” Borden said. Most designed landscapes are “not communicating environmental science,” even though they may be informed by science. He pointed to Teardrop Park in Battery Park, designed by Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, as a positive example of how to communicate earth sciences through design.

He said landscape architects can go beyond simply transferring scientific information to the public, instead using strategies that convey, contribute, contextualize, and criticize. He called for bringing in the visual arts, humor, pop culture, and applying a collaborative design process to scientific communications.

His own work integrates a design studio with scientific labs and networks, helping to reframe landscapes as “hybrid collective space.”

What do landscape architects have to do with farming and ranching? “Agriculture is the largest land use on Earth,” said Forbes Lipschitz, associate professor of landscape architecture, The Ohio State University. The agricultural sector shapes ecosystems and communities across the planet. So landscape architects need to get involved in “reframing and reshaping” the sector.

A climate justice strategy is needed to “break free” from current industrial, extractive agricultural practices and shift towards a more just and sustainable food system. For Lipschitz, elevating Indigenous approaches to food is key to this climate justice strategy.

She spent months traveling, exploring how the industrial food systems of the U.S. works. “It is not a single coordinated spatial arrangement.” There are more than 33 million cows, 124 million hogs, and 9 billion chickens, who produce more than 96 billion eggs per year. She calculated that shifting to a more plant-based diet would free up massive amounts of land, significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and enable “climate repair on a planetary scale.” She envisions a model like the U.S. Conservation Reserve Program, which restores parts of the ecosystems of farms, but now also enabling greater Indigenous stewardship.

“Native communities have the vision and knowledge” of how to manage and harvest lands in a more sustainable, ecological way.

Agroforestry is a significant untapped opportunity, argued Amy Whitesides, design critic, Harvard University Graduate School of Design. The approach involves combining trees and plants with crops or livestock. A type of agroforestry is silvopasture, which just focuses on integrating forest and livestock grazing. Today, just two percent of U.S. farms are agroforests.

Billions of dollars were allocated for agroforestry, alley cropping, soil restoration, and other “climate-smart” agricultural practices as part of the Inflation Reduction Act. This support for farmers to increase carbon sequestration through the land was put on hold through an executive order, Whitesides said. Allocated funding is expected to be cut.

Agroforestry is a way to increase ecological restoration and carbon sequestration on farmland, Whitesides explained. She proposed a national agroforestry plan, focusing on degraded farms, former mines and military sites, and areas surrounding rivers. These marginal landscapes, which have experienced pollution and extraction, can be restored, with some grazing that adds value. Agroforesty can also be incorporated into floodplains, providing a nature-based solution to flooding.

She envisions the benefits from “productive, collective commons” in new agroforested areas over the long-term.

Read Part I

ASLA and its Climate & Biodiversity Action Committee have developed a new hub that brings together environmental product data from landscape architecture product manufacturers and material suppliers in the U.S. and worldwide.

The freely-accessible resource enables landscape architects to find products and materials with:

• Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs)
• Life Cycle Assessments (LCAs)
• Eco-Label certifications (Forest Stewardship Council, etc)

It also includes industry-wide EPDs developed by associations representing manufacturers and suppliers. Industry-wide EPDs set baselines for product categories, such as bricks or pre-cast concrete.

“Products and materials make up more than 75 percent of greenhouse gas emissions from landscape architecture projects. They also have impacts on biodiversity and air and water quality. We need to look at environmental product data so we can be more aware of the impacts of what we specify and speed up our efforts to track and cut our emissions,” said Aida Curtis, FASLA, PLA, Chair, ASLA Climate & Biodiversity Action Committee.

“We applaud the product manufacturers and suppliers that have invested in providing EPDs and other product data to landscape architects. The entire landscape architecture community benefits from transparent, third-party verified product data – it enables us to achieve our collective climate and biodiversity goals faster,” said ASLA President Kona Gray, FASLA, PLA.

The resource will be updated on a rolling, monthly basis. Current ASLA Corporate Members and current and past ASLA Conference sponsors, EXPO exhibitors, and Landscape Architecture Magazine advertisers can submit their product data. The ASLA Corporate Member Committee is providing support to landscape architecture product manufacturers and suppliers that have questions on how to provide new data.

The hub also outlines other primary sources of EPDs and product data.

Landscape architects and product manufacturers can learn more about environmental product data through a resource released last year – Navigating Environmental Product Data: A Guide for Landscape Architects, Specifiers, and Industry Partners.

The guide was developed by Amy Syverson-Shaffer, ASLA, Landscape Forms and Sasha Anemone, ASLA, Salt Landscape Architects.

It outlines how EPDs and other environmental reporting can be used to understand the environmental impacts of landscape materials and products and make decisions to reduce those impacts.

A plaza in downtown Denver, Colorado was a “harsh place,” a “terrible concrete plaza,” explained Kasey Toomey, PLA, landscape architect, artist, and senior project manager at Terremoto. “We decided to create a habitat, a green space for all these creatures” — not just people.

The new 18,000-square foot plaza purposefully creates space for insects and birds but also significantly reduces greenhouse gas emissions. All material, except for some Black Locust wood lumber and a few metal tables and chairs, was sourced within 100 miles. “We’re pretty fluid — we respond to local materials and product manufacturers’ expertise.”

Terremoto usually designs projects close to their home turf in southern California. With this opportunity, they wanted to see if they could apply their highly local, low-carbon design approach in another state.

Danielle VanLehe, landscape designer at Terremoto, said when they arrived in Denver they intentionally stayed in a hotel far from downtown. “We spent time hiking and immersing ourselves in the natural environment, which became our guide and helped us make decisions about plants and boulders.” Terremoto started the design process this way to ensure they were “respecting native ecosystems.”

They also partnered with Kevin Philip Williams, a local botanist and plant designer, to help them think through the native plant communities for the new plaza. The team curated a mix of plants that connect to foothill and short grass prairie ecosystems.

The designers also ran their plant selections by the local Audubon Society. They advised which plants would provide habitat for local bird species missing from downtown Denver. “We looked at plant structure, type, when they bloom, and which would provide nesting space and protective cover,” VonLehe said.

Given the tight budget of $1.3 million, there wasn’t enough for a fountain or basin for the plaza, which sits on top of the basement of the surrounding buildings. This led the team to design in boulders with natural depressions, which the team then set next to irrigation systems. The indents in the boulders catch water, providing a water source for insects and birds.

With a conceptual design in place, Terremoto took their client out on a multi-day tour of nearby native plant nurseries, material suppliers, and product manufacturers. “In all our projects, we develop intimate relationships with materials and manufacturers. That process influenced the design of the plaza.”

They selected Lyons Sandstone for boulders, pavers, and decomposed granite, because they agreed to work with them in a collaborative way. “We started a dialogue with the quarry — exploring their stone yard to find those boulders with the depressions.” This approach also demonstrates their fluid approach to design: “In our first drawings, the plaza definitely wasn’t pink, but then we found this source,” Toomey said.

They undertook a similar process to find a manufacturer that could transform old trees into sculptural benches. Terremoto selected Where Wood Meets Steel because the company could take a light touch to processing benches. “We usually only do one or two moves to an object or material — to keep it closest to its natural state.” Beyond the beauty of these natural materials, there are added benefits. Materials with little processing have much lower embodied carbon emissions and are often more economical.

The only material not from the local area is the Black Locust wood used for the decks, some benches, and other custom furniture. Toomey said it’s a strong, durable wood that is grown and processed in many parts of the U.S. It’s also a far better alternative to tropical hardwoods like Ipe. Extraction of Ipe causes immense harm to rainforest ecosystems.

Toomey thinks creating an “‘ecosystem’ with the developer, local builder and product manufacturers” is key to making authentic places that are connected to people and ecosystems. “It’s important to focus on local relationships and materials that build and deepen community.”

And it’s possible to forge these relationships in another place while minimizing travel emissions. Terremoto’s team took fewer but longer trips to Denver. “We inserted ourselves only when necessary.” To maximize efficiencies, they also participated in the construction process over five days, choreographing the placement of plants, benches, and boulders. “We were part of the team as it was being built.”

UN Ocean Summit in Nice Closes with Wave of Commitments, UN News, June 13
The conference was viewed as a major win for ocean conservation. It yielded new progress on making the High Seas Treaty international law and resulted in the Nice Ocean Action Plan, which is supported by a declaration by over 170 countries and more than 800 commitments by governments, scientists, and UN and other organizations.

Vietnam Launches First Phase of Emissions Trading Scheme, Reuters, June 11
Vietnam aims to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. To hit that goal, the country has required its concrete, steel, and power sectors — which account for approximately 50 percent of its emissions — to join an emissions trading scheme. Commercial buildings and cargo transportation will be added in later phases.

New Zealand Government Sued over ‘Inadequate’ Plan to Reduce Emissions, CNN, June 11
“This will be one of the first legal cases in the world challenging a government’s pursuit of a climate strategy that relies so heavily on offsetting rather than emissions reductions at source,” said one of the organizations suing the New Zealand government.

How Restored Wetlands Can Protect Europe from Russian Invasion, Yale Environment 360, June 10
The flooding of the Irpin Valley in Ukraine stopped a Russian advance. Scientists from Ukraine, Germany, and Poland are now looking at a broader European “natural defense” strategy that would include protecting and restoring thousands of miles of wetlands and forests, turning them into nature-based barriers that also provide climate and biodiversity benefits.

New Initiative Aims to Turn Vacant, Abandoned Lots into Parks, Spectrum News – NY1, May 27
The New York City government has committed a total of $80 million to purchasing abandoned lots, focusing on underserved communities that lack access to parks within a 10-minute walk. The City also plans on opening more schoolyards to the community after school, on the weekends, and during the summer.