Date of Award
Spring 5-22-2026
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Landscape Architecture (MLA)
Department
Landscape Architecture
First Advisor
Suzanne Mathew
Second Advisor
Ann Kearsley
Abstract
Retreat from vulnerable floodplain landscapes is inevitable, and will only become a more pressing issue as climate change exacerbates flood risk. Unfortunately, it is a process that results in displacement of a community; people are uprooted from a place, and from each other. Post-retreat landscapes are largely converted to conservation land, re-naturalized floodplains, abandoned, ghostly neighborhoods, or public parks.
But this thesis wants to challenge the status quo retreat process, and consider the possibility of retreat not being destructive, but generative. Retreat can instead be an opportunity for reconciliation, stewardship, cooperation, and community building.
How can gardening and long-term community land stewardship be integrated into the managed retreat process to facilitate a generational connection to a place that outlasts the ability to live there?
This thesis is a proposed gardening and land stewardship system that can be referenced by communities in various stages of retreat interested in finding ways of maintaining a connection to each other and the landscape they’re retreating from. This work supports the notion that collaborative gardening and stewardship has the power to create rootedness to place that outlasts the ability to live there; it exists as a body of knowledge that hopes to inspire other designers, horticulturists, planners, and developers to consider the ideas proposed in this work as methods for strengthening communities, and their relationship to dynamic landscapes, in the face of climate change.
Recommended Citation
Dutton, Brooke E., "Rooted Retreat: Integrating Community Land Stewardship and Gardening into Managed Retreat for Generational Connection to Place" (2026). Masters Theses. 1695.
https://digitalcommons.risd.edu/masterstheses/1695
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.