Climate Resilience Committee, Chinese Society of Landscape Architecture
Introduction
Climate change is currently the most pressing environmental and social issue on the international stage. Rapid urbanization and climate change pose severe challenges to global sustainable development, including intensified rainfall, rising temperatures, and sea-level rise. Countries worldwide are actively seeking innovative concepts and effective strategies to address these challenges. China has placed equal emphasis on both mitigating and adapting to climate change. Guided by the vision of ecological civilization and the goal of building a beautiful China, 17 departments—including the Ministry of Ecology and Environment—jointly issued the National Climate Change Adaptation Strategy 2035 to enhance the climate resilience of natural ecosystems and socio-economic systems.
The landscape architecture industry can address multiple challenges—such as floods, droughts, biodiversity decline, and the urban heat island effect—through solutions grounded in science, art, and nature, thereby enabling environments to become regenerative, resilient, and adaptive to climate change. Climate change is a shared issue that transcends national, social, cultural, disciplinary, and institutional boundaries. Against the backdrop of China’s ecological civilization construction and the carbon peaking and carbon neutrality (dual-carbon) strategy, as well as the global pursuit of carbon neutrality, it is both timely and internationally forward-looking to reinforce the value of the landscape architecture discipline in addressing climate change. This effort should integrate international concepts while drawing upon traditional wisdom.
Furthermore, responding to the challenges posed by climate change requires interdisciplinary collaboration involving ecology, hydrology, meteorology, botany, and more. National initiatives jointly advanced by various ministries, such as sponge city construction, ecological protection and restoration, and the dual-carbon strategy, represent China’s proactive responses to sustainable development. Some achievements have already gained global recognition and contributed Chinese solutions to the international climate agenda. However, in general, many climate-related projects still lack multi-scale, systematic, and holistic strategies. As a key profession in designing and transforming human habitats, landscape architecture has seen research and practice initiated by certain academic institutions and practitioners. Nevertheless, the overall level of industry participation and the maturity of the knowledge system still have considerable room for improvement. The landscape architecture industry needs to actively participate in and take a leading role in climate action, exploring diverse solutions to enhance the resilience, adaptability, and regenerative capacity of human environments.
Against the strategic backdrop of ecological civilization construction and in response to the opportunities of the time and the industry, the Climate Resilience Committee of the Chinese Society of Landscape Architecture was established in August 2024. The committee aims to foster the development and innovation of China’s landscape architecture discipline in the context of climate change, while providing professional design solutions for climate-related challenges. Viewing the future of landscape architecture from the perspective of climate adaptation places the discipline within a broader temporal context and a more significant value framework. This approach expands its scope, enriches its professional directions, and enhances its significance both nationally and globally.
