Regenerative landscape design: an integrative framework to enhance sustainability planning

Abstract

Addressing contemporary environmental and social crises requires solutions-based, systems-level changes. To achieve these changes, transdisciplinary research approaches are needed to align problem framing with solution deployment at landscape scales. However, practical frameworks to guide this work are lacking. Here we propose a new framework to help bridge this gap: regenerative landscape design (RLD). We define RLD as a process for finding pattern-based solutions, emphasizing cooperative, iterative, and facilitated engagement for the co-production of locally relevant knowledge for desirable landscape stewardship. To do so, we review how key components of RLD (e.g., landscapes, design thinking, and regenerative processes) have been differentially and unevenly applied in disciplines ranging from resilience, landscape ecology, geography, architecture, agriculture, sociology, tourism, and more. We then put forward research considerations of a RLD approach to enhance social and environmental well-being. We use two emerging case studies (i.e., Chesapeake Bay Watershed, Pennsylvania, USA and Narok County, Kenya) to put forward pathways for implementation of the RLD strategy.

Adaptability of Prunus cerasifera Ehrh. to Climate Changes in Multifunctional Landscape

“…Apart from the existential needs of the population, the species needs to be adaptive to climate changes and needs to realize its full aesthetical and ecological potential amid the challenging environmental conditions in urban areas. Landscape design, management, and planning are especially challenging since species must be appropriate for the location from both the ecological and aesthetic perspectives [6][7][8][9]. Realizing full ecological potential within certain aesthetic preferences assumes species adaptability to climate changes that are specific to a given locality [10].…”