The Population Health Initiative has awarded eight early-stage pilot grants in November 2025. The project, “Embodied Nature Engagement: Developing the Interaction Pattern Preference Inventory (IPPI) for Nature Prescriptions in Primary Care” includes Sebastian Tong (Department of Family Medicine), Peter Kahn (Department of Psychology & School of Environmental and Forest Sciences), Ashley Park (Department of Family Medicine), and Hongfei Li (College of Built Environments). Hongfei Li is a lecturer and interdisciplinary PhD student in the Landscape Architecture department. Congratulations to Hongfei…
Department: Landscape Architecture
Effects of pollution on ecologically and economically important organisms of the Salish Sea
Axworthy, J. B., Bates, E. H., Grosser, M. P., & Padilla-Gamiño, J. L. (2025). Effects of pollution on ecologically and economically important organisms of the Salish Sea. Marine Pollution Bulletin, 219, Article 118322. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpolbul.2025.118322.
Abstract
Marine pollution threatens ecosystems, biodiversity, and human health, impacting species fitness, disrupting food webs, and degrading essential habitats. This review examines the effects of marine pollution on key species in the Salish Sea, a vital ecosystem supporting diverse wildlife, including endangered species, and local economies reliant on fishing, aquaculture, and tourism. In total, we synthesized 116 studies including chemical pollution (78), biological pollution (15), marine debris (15), and sound pollution (8). Research on marine chemical pollution has primarily focused on pollutants in fish (41), followed by studies on birds (11), mammals (7), and bivalves (7), then invertebrates (2). Future investigations should broaden species coverage, assess various life stages, and evaluate the impact of climate change on pollutant accumulation. Biological pollution, driven mainly by intentionally introduced species like farmed shellfish and salmon, threatens native species and can spread pathogens. There is a pressing need for research on the effects of fecal-borne pathogens on marine organisms and the influence of seagrass beds, fish farms, and sewage outfalls on pathogen dynamics. Marine debris, especially derelict fishing gear, negatively impacts local organisms, while the effects of tire reefs and microplastics remain poorly understood. Research should integrate laboratory and field assessments to analyze microplastic ingestion and improve detection technologies to inform conservation efforts. Noise pollution research has focused on marine mammals like killer whales, highlighting how sound pollution disrupts communication and behavior, which can indirectly alter food webs and community dynamics. Future studies should also encompass other marine species, including fish and invertebrates. Understanding pollution impacts is crucial for developing effective mitigation strategies, protecting marine life, and ensuring sustainable ocean resource management for future generations.
Matt Grosser
Matt is a designer and researcher hailing from the Great South Bay of Long Island, New York. He is an interdisciplinary PhD student, and University of Washington MLA Graduate, whose practice has ranged from helping to oversee the design and implementation of New York City’s green infrastructure program to shoreline design and permitting throughout the Pacific Northwest.
Matt’s research focuses on how ecosystem-based infrastructural adaptation strategies can serve as a mechanism for stemming the impacts of climate change, with a specific interest in the role that critical ecologies and keystone species can play in resilience/adaptation design and planning. His work investigates how traditional and emerging ecologically-based infrastructural techniques could be improved and more broadly applied, as well as how the resultant socio-ecological bonds formed by the implementation of these strategies may elevate the role of ecological systems thinking for design and planning practices within the built environment.
When not pondering relationality within the web of life Matt can be found paddling around the waters of Seattle with his shiba inu Hideki.
Amy Wagenfeld
Amy Wagenfeld, PhD, OTR/L, SCEM, EDAC, FAOTA. Amy’s roles as an occupational therapist include therapeutic and universal design consultant, educator, researcher, and author. In addition to her role in the Department of Landscape Architecture, she is a faculty member in the Boston University Post-Professional Occupational Therapy Doctoral program and Principal of Amy Wagenfeld |Design. She is a Fellow of the American Occupational Therapy Association, holds evidence-based design accreditation and certification (EDAC) through the Center for Health Design and specialty certification in environmental modifications (SCEM) through the American Occupational Therapy Association, and certification in Healthcare Garden Design through the Chicago Botanical Garden. Amy was recently awarded the American Occupational Therapy Association Recognition of Achievement and the American Society of Landscape Architects Outstanding Service Award for her unique blending of occupational therapy and design.
With a strong background in human development, Amy is passionate about providing people of all ages, abilities, and cultures equitable, inclusive, and safe access to therapeutic environments in which to recreate, learn, and socialize and recognizes that successful design must, at its core, support mental health and foster resilience. Her work focuses on universal design, programming, and evaluation of environments that support physical and emotional rehabilitation and learning across the lifespan in children’s, educational, healthcare, senior living, military, correctional, and community settings.
Amy’s collaborative design projects include a sensory garden for individuals with autism, a therapeutic recreation center, a universally designed serenity garden at a Florida state park, a garden for children in the foster care system, a garden for young children whose families are experiencing homelessness, memory care and assisted living gardens, gardens in correctional facilities, educational facilities, and at military healthcare facilities, and redesign of a community mental health center and garden. Amy served on the design team for three American Society of Landscape Architecture award winning therapeutic gardens, as well as was a recipient of a silver medal from the International Association of Universal Design, a Healthcare Environment Landscape Award, and two New York state design awards.
Amy presents and publishes widely in peer-reviewed and popular press publications on topics relating to collaboration with designers and inclusive access to nature. She is co-author, with Daniel Winterbottom, of the award-winning book, Therapeutic Gardens: Design for Healing Spaces published by Timber Press in 2015 and author of Nature Notes, a column for Exceptional Needs Today magazine.
Beyond unintentionality: considering climate maladaptation as cyclical
Shah, S.H., Haverkamp, J.A., Guzmán, C.B. et al. Beyond unintentionality: considering climate maladaptation as cyclical. Climatic Change 178, 77 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-025-03922-7
Abstract
Climate adaptation is imperative; however, instances of maladaptation are increasingly documented in sectors and locations around the world. Despite the prevalence of maladaptation, researchers and intergovernmental actors, including the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, consistently frame it as “unintentional.” Drawing from environmental injustice, critical development studies, critical race theory, and coloniality scholarship, we argue the impossibility of characterizing maladaptation—now a global-scale phenomenon—as an unintended consequence of well-intentioned adaptation planning. This paper reframes the (re)production of climate maladaptation as a foreseeable result of the unequal systems of colonial racial capitalism through which adaptation is implemented and refracted. Systems-level change that confronts uneven relations of power, rather than incremental institutional reform, can address the prevalence of maladaptation. Treated as such, tackling climate maladaptation becomes a “political project”— not merely a “planning project.”
Keywords
Climate maladaptation; climate vulnerability; transformative adaptation; Longue durée; colonialism, injustice
Networked shorelines: A review of vulnerability interactions between human adaptation to sea level rise and wetland migration
Celina Balderas Guzman, Networked shorelines: A review of vulnerability interactions between human adaptation to sea level rise and wetland migration, Global Environmental Change, Volume 92, 2025, 102985, ISSN 0959-3780, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2025.102985.
Abstract
Facing urgent climate risks, many human and non-human actors are adapting to climate change with adaptations that sometimes shift vulnerabilities to other actors. Shifting vulnerabilities is a type of maladaptation and understanding them is a critical component of adaptation planning given the growing incidence of maladaptation across many sectors and regions. This review creates an analytical framework, called the Vulnerability Interactions Framework, to identify instances of shifting vulnerabilities from across the natural and social science literature and interpret them using a systematic approach. To demonstrate its utility, the analytical framework is applied in the context of coastal adaptation to sea level rise on the topics of coastal squeeze and wetland migration. Along certain shorelines, humans are building protective infrastructure, such as sea walls and levees, to protect themselves from sea level rise. Meanwhile, coastal wetlands—one of the world’s most valuable ecosystems—are able to adapt to sea level rise when they can migrate landward. This wetland adaptation is often blocked by human shoreline development and infrastructure—a phenomenon known as coastal squeeze. Yet migrating wetlands may also impact human actors in negative ways. This review identifies 53 distinct ways that vulnerabilities can shift across human and non-human actors on physical, economic, environmental, social, cultural, and institutional dimensions. These interactions reflect particular biophysical and social contexts and can operate on multiple spatial and temporal scales. Because of these complex interactions, adaptation planning must look towards developing solutions that are cross-sectoral and cross-scalar in scope, place adaptation within a larger socio-ecological context, consider a phased approach, engage with communities, build local adaptive capacity, and address personal, social, and cultural losses inherent in coastal transformations. Overall, the Vulnerability Interactions Framework can be used as a research or planning tool to map observed or hypothetical shifts in vulnerability.
Keywords
Vulnerability; Adaptation; Maladaptation; Sea level rise; Wetlands; Socio-ecological systems
Innovative communication strategies for promoting urban wildlife habitat conservation
Waller, M., Cove, M. V., Daniels, J. C., & Yocom, K. P. (2025). Innovative communication strategies for promoting urban wildlife habitat conservation. Landscape and Urban Planning, 253, 105229-. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landurbplan.2024.105229
Abstract
The emerging recognition of the importance of urban habitat and wildlife for increasing biodiversity, driven partly by responses to climate change and urbanization, presents critical opportunities for urban biodiversity conservation and species recovery. However, effectively communicating these benefits to the public and policymakers remains a challenge for scientists and landscape architects with public perceptions, often shaped by diverse socio-cultural factors, serving as obstacles for garnering support. Our research explores innovative communication strategies through an intersectional analysis of planning and design communications and theory in museology and presents a structured approach in the use of charismatic species within interpretive studies to enhance public empathy and the potential for action. This research offers a valuable foundation for planning and design professionals, guiding their efforts to promote urban wildlife habitat and bridge the gaps between scientific knowledge and public advocacy.
Keywords
Urban wildlife habitat; Biodiversity conservation; Communication strategies
Products from 2023 Inspire Fund Cohort
A cohort of 4 projects were awarded Inspire Funds in April 2023. The report-outs from these projects are described below with a summary of project work and progress. The 2023 cohort of Inspire Fund awardees met with the 2024 cohort of awardees in May 2024 to share their accomplishments, successes, and challenges, and to foster a connection between these research teams as resources to one another. The 2024 cohort has begun their projects and will share their products in 2025….
Johnston-Hastings Endowment 2024-2025 Awardees Selected
The 2024-2025 Awardees for the Johnston-Hastings Endowment Publication and Travel awards have been selected. The Johnston-Hastings Endowments are in honor of Emeritus Professor Norman J. Johnston and his wife, L. Jane Hastings, established and endowed travel support and publications support funds to provide money for activities of faculty and students in the College. Publications endowment support is for work that has been accepted for publication rather than the writing thereof. Such support is needed for publication; especially where a University…
Rebecca Bachman
Rebecca’s long-term design and research interests involve exploring a gap between built environment design fields and public health research. She believes that an essential component of design activism must be research that can inform equitable policy. Rebecca holds a Master of Landscape Architecture and Graduate Certificate of Global Health from the University of Washington, and is a current NIH Fogarty Scholar. She has spent recent years working with the design-action-research firm Traction on design and research projects that examine built environments as social determinants of human and ecological health in marginalized urban communities in Peru. In addition to English, Rebecca speaks Spanish and Portuguese, and has a blended background in international relations, journalism, and horticulture—all of which is integral to her current interdisciplinary work.