New Grant Opportunity: Landscape Architecture Solutions That Address Inland Flooding

Apply by March 20 for a $15,000 national research grant for landscape architecture to review evidence on solutions for inland flooding.
January 30, 2026
Climate & Biodiversity Research
ASLA 2021 Professional General Design Honor Award. Orange Mall Green Infrastructure. Tempe, Arizona. COLWELL SHELOR LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE / Marion Brenner

By Jared Green

The ASLA Fund, a 501(c)(3) organization, is accepting proposals for a new national competitive research grant. The Fund invites ASLA member or non-member landscape architecture academics to develop a succinct and impactful research review that investigates evidence of the benefits of landscape architecture solutions for inland flooding.

The research review will aggregate the most relevant and credible peer-reviewed evidence to answer the questions:

  • What landscape architecture- and nature-based solutions effectively reduce inland flooding? 
  • What solutions at the urban and suburban, neighborhood, and site scales work best? 
  • What are planning and design project examples at various scales that have demonstrated proven flood reduction benefits while also reducing heat, sequestering carbon, improving stormwater quality and management, and increasing biodiversity?

The research will be peer-reviewed by a four-member panel of landscape architecture academics, including representatives from Landscape Journal and the Council of Educators on Landscape Architecture (CELA):

  • Dr. James A. LaGro Jr., PhD, PLA, Professor Emeritus, Department of Planning and Landscape Architecture, College of Letters & Sciences, University of Wisconsin - Madison and Editor-in-Chief, Landscape Journal, the flagship academic journal of the Council for Educators in Landscape Architecture (CELA).
  • Mary Pat McGuire, ASLA, PLA, Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture and Dean’s Fellow for Research, College of Fine & Applied Arts, The University of Illinois – Urbana Champaign.
  • Ashley Steffens, ASLA, FCELA, Vice President, Education, American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) and Crowley Professor in Urban Planning and Design and Associate Dean of Academic Programs and Student Affairs, College of Environment + Design, University of Georgia
  • Dr. Bo Yang, FASLA, PLA, PhD, AICP, Associate Dean for Research and Professor of Landscape Architecture and Urban Planning, School of Landscape Architecture and Planning, The University of Arizona.

For the research review, the ASLA Fund will provide $15,000. The research will be completed by February 2027.

Who can submit a proposal? 
 
The grant recipient’s Principal Investigator must be a current member of a U.S. academic institution as a full- or part-time lecturer, or adjunct, assistant, associate, full, or emeritus professor.
 
The Principal Investigator is encouraged to collaborate with graduate or undergraduate student research assistants, academics at their institution or others, and practitioners to undertake the research project. The research team will be credited and acknowledged in the published research reviews.
 
The Principal Investigator must have published research in a peer-reviewed journal. Graduate degree is required; in-progress or completed PhD is a plus.

Research proposals are due Friday, March 20. 

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