“Shift the mindset—reject gray infrastructure as the default and advocate for landscape-based, water-driven solutions. Prioritize wetland restoration, floodplain protection, and nature-based urban water systems in every project. Push for policies that recognize landscape architecture as an essential discipline in climate action. Every intervention, however small, should contribute to a Sponge Planet: retaining water at its source, slowing down water flow, and embracing water at its sink.”

Embracing sea level rise. ASLA 2020 Professional General Design Honor Award. Deep Form of Designed Nature: Sanya Mangrove Park. Sanya City, Hainan Province, China. © Turenscape

Calculating the economic benefits of these projects is also important: “Measuring the value of these projects’ multiple benefits – and tallying the harm caused by traditional gray infrastructure — can show the cost-effectiveness of such investments.”