Great Lakes Region Climate Action Seminar - Day 2 (1/30/2026)

Disaster & Refuge in the Great Lakes: Preparing for Vulnerability and Possibility inthe Climate Crisis

January 29 & 30, 2026

Format: Two half-day virtual seminarsoffering 5 LACES PDH (pending) each day.

The NY Upstate, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan,Illinois, Wisconsinand Minnesota Chapters ofthe American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA), as well as the Ontario Associationof Landscape Architects (OALA), are collaborating on the 2026 Great Lakes Region Climate Action Seminar. This is the fourth event in a series aimed to explore and expand landscape architects' and allied professionals' role regarding climate change impacts occurring in urban and natural systems across the Great Lakes Region.

Description:

The theme for the 2026 Seminar is Disaster & Refuge in the Great Lakes: Preparing for Vulnerability and Possibility in the Climate Crisis.

While the Great Lakes Region isn’t commonly perceived as vulnerable to climate change,the impacts of the climate crisis are real and intensifying. Extreme rainfall events and flooding, fluctuating lake levels, heat wave intensity, dangerous air quality, invasive species, and rapid ecosystem changes are occurring with greater magnitude across the Great Lakes. Additionally, the Region faces serious challenges with a vast and aging infrastructure system, legacy industrial contamination, densely populated urban centers, aquatic algal blooms, and fragmented and vulnerable shorelines, all of which will intensify in the changing climate.

Yet, as the largest source of freshwater in North America, the Region also holds great potential as a climate refuge for people needing to relocate from other regions in the U.S. prone to devastating wildfires, hurricanes, sea-level rise, extreme heat, and extreme aridity. The likelihood of populations migrating toward the Great Lakes prompts urgent questions about how to build and strengthen ecological resilience in the region while also preparing for significant demographic transformation.

The goal of the 2026 Great Lakes Region Climate Action Seminar is to share new, emerging, and even radical research, practice, engagement, and financial models needed to address Great Lakes vulnerabilities and possibilities for its future. The seminar will offer informative presentations, provocative proposals, collaborative discussions, and interactive reflections on these intense subjects of concern. We hope to inspire each other, raise questions, identify opportunities, and emerge with new understanding in this work so that we can create, facilitate, and respond to vital initiatives and research to protect and prepare for change in the Great Lakes.

This symposium will bring landscape architects and allied professionbals, educators, and communities together to talk about the pressing challenges facing our region and will unpack how critical partnerships are taking shape to address new challenges and opportunities.

Program Overview & Schedule (all times listed are Central time)

January 30, 2026

Day2 Schedule (9am–2:30pm Central Time)

5. 9-10 am CT(1.0 LACES HSW)
Landscape Architects as Natural Infrastructure Designers: Rethinking Climate Adaptation in the Great Lakes Region, Presenter:KatrinaKelly-Pitou, Director of Climate Adaptation and Economics

6. 10-11:30 amCT(1.5 LACES HSW)
a. Ontario Lake Huron Shoreline Futures: Managed Retreat and Commoning, Presenter:Manuel Spiller
b. Resilient Edges: From Disaster to Refuge through Communication and Collaboration, Presenters:Jenny Hill, Ram Espino, Semiha Caglayan, Sharon Lam

7. 11:45-12:45 pmCT(1.0 LACES HSW)
a. Navigating Conservation Planning through Social and EcologicalStructures in Northwest Indiana, Presenter:Grace Lentz, Aaron Thompson
b. Envisioning Climate Futures in the Great Lakes: Cape Vincent, NY, Presenters:Hamby Hamby, Robert Katz, Tess Van-Mikel, William Blackley,Marina Belotserkovskaya

8. 12:45-2:15 pmCT(1.5 LACES HSW)
a. A Breath of Fresh Air! One Community’s Search for Environmental Justice, Presenter: Brett Weidl
b. Increasing Public Support for Climate Change Policies to Strengthen Resilience, Presenters:Sam B. Lovall, John H. Hartig, Stephanie Smith
c. Day 2 Closing Panel Discussion, Moderator: Sara Constantineau and Cat Kana, ASLA Upstate NY Chapter

SESSION DESCRIPTIONS

Landscape Architects as Natural Infrastructure Designers: Rethinking Climate Adaptation in the Great Lakes Region

Description coming soon...

Ontario Lake Huron Shoreline Futures: Managed Retreat and Commoning
Great Lakes’ shoreline governance faces barriers that prevent efficient and effective management. Ripple effects and actions that pass on risks from hazards such as flooding and erosion require new and pro-active approaches. This presentation will outline the current governance landscape for lake shorelines in Ontario and explore the potential role of both, managed retreat and collaborative stakeholder governancefor comprehensive risk mitigation.

Resilient Edges: From Disaster to Refuge through Communication and Collaboration
Resilient Edges explores how the Western Lake Ontario shoreline can transition from climate disaster torefuge through nature-based design. Combining geomorphic analysis, community survey data, andapplied case studies, the project identifies where erosion, flooding, and warming converge and howhybrid NbS, living revetments, wetlands, vegetated berms, can respond. Visual tools and stakeholder engagement translate science into shared understanding, building regional capacity for climate adaptation. Resilience, we argue, is both technical and social: the co-creation of adaptive, inhabited, andcommunicable coastal edges across the Great Lakes.

Navigating Conservation Planning through Social and Ecological Structures in Northwest Indiana: A Multidisciplinary Approach to Conservation in the Great Lakes Region

Thispresentation will outline the methodology and outcomes of Purdue University’s CELCP planning research study, and provide insights into landscape-scale conservation planning, systems thinking, andthe role of research to inform design in the Great Lakes Region. This presentation session will include anoral/visual panel presentation of research materials, and discussion/question time.

Envisioning Climate Futures in the Great Lakes: Cape Vincent, NY

This presentation will showcase resilient site designsin the village of Cape Vincent, NY. Cape Vincent isa coastal community in the Great Lakes region at risk of climate shocks. The presentation will discusspast flooding in Cape Vincent. It will present how the village of Cape Vincent responded and their currentgoals to improve resiliency. Attendees will learn what climate-related events and water managementpractices contribute to flooding, what state-level policies exist to address climate change, and what scalable design solutions exist.

A Breath of Fresh Air! One Community’s Search for Environmental Justice
Negative climate and environmental impacts tend to affect particular community populations, races, orincome levels more than others. Through a focused community-oriented lens, the City of Evanston,Illinois is confronting how the most pressing issues in their community today have been impacted by historic injustices and where change will need to be made to address the climate, resiliency, and equity issues in their city tomorrow. This session will explore how landscape architects are uncovering historic injustices that have led to climate and environmental inequities while discovering how to address theissues for a more resilient andequitable future.

Increasing Public Support for Climate Change Policies to Strengthen Resilience
Thispresentation addresses a fundamental problem regarding why climate change mitigation andresilience measures needed to prepare for disaster vulnerability in the climate crises are meetingresistance among cynics. Strategies are presented involving green infrastructure that enable easieraccess into the natural world—subliminally persuading climate change naysayers, while continuing effortsto create carbon sinks; media-worthy dialog involving world-wide experts advocating for climate changesupport; and targeted educational programming for youth—all strategies that landscape architects caneither participate in or lead.

Day 2 Closing Panel Discussion
This session is structured as a roundtable discussion designed to help participants consider ways to translate ideas into action. Building on the conference’s themes, the conversation will encourageattendees to reflect on what they learned, identify opportunities for interdisciplinary or regionalcollaboration, and examine barriers that prevent climate strategies from advancing in practice. Thediscussion will also explore ways to build and sustain networks that support long-term climate action and carry conference momentum forward.

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REGISTRATION RATES

• ASLA or OALA Member: $35/day (includes LACES credits)
• Emerging Professional ASLA Member: $25/day (An emerging professional is an ASLA member who has graduated within the last 5 years)
• Student: Free
• Non Members: $50/day (includes LACES or CM credits)

THIS EVENT HAS A 2 PART REGISTRATION PROCESS:

Your registration confirmation email will include a link to the Zoom registration. After completing the Zoom registration, you will receive a link and password to access the event.