Figure 7: Proposed competency framework

Feedback from a limited number of self-selected respondents to the draft framework,

suggests that there needs to be more focus and emphasis on the economics of landscape

and community engagement (Hirst, 2020), which would be very apt for NFM. The

respondents were also invited to self-assess their skills, but there is insufficient detail in the

reporting to draw meaningful conclusions.

Figure 7: Proposed competency framework (Landscape Institute, 2020)

What about the LI’s NFM activity as a professional body? What lobbying activity has there

been on the part of the LI regarding flood management or NFM? In the 2016, the then president of the LI, Sue Illman, wrote in the LI’s magazine, ‘Landscape’, that she had been

‘promoting an integrated catchment approach to government on behalf of the Institute

since 2014’. In 2015, she was an expert witness to the All Party Parliamentary Group for

Excellence in the Built Environment Inquiry into Flooding. Illman also served as the Construction Industry Council’s champion for flood mitigation and resilience (Illman, 2016). The LI has also produced technical notes for its membership on the ‘Catchment Approach’ (Odell, 2015) and ‘Water, Flooding & Landscape’ (Gray, 2020), but it is not known to what

extend they have been referred to. The earlier technical note proposes several small ways

that landscape architects might take on a role in a catchment partnership and these chime

with conclusions regarding NFM reached through this literature review. For instance, it is

suggested that landscape architects’ understanding of landscape character enable them to

see connections and opportunities.

Information that reveals the extent to which landscape architects have worked or are

currently working on NFM projects is not easily available. Searching the internet with the terms ‘landscape architect’ , ‘CMLI1’ , ‘natural flood management’ and ‘flood management’ ,

brings up limited results. A chartered landscape architect, Amanda McDermott is a founder

of the NFM initiative, Slow the Flow Calderdale, and is participating as an affected resident

and as a landscape architect (Gray & McDermott, 2019). Searches also led to a Catchment

Landscape Vision for the Cole Valley written by a CMLI (Lanchbury, 2019). Although not

strictly an NFM project, it is an example of how a landscape architect can lead a catchment

wide project from an early strategic stage.

1 CMLI – Chartered Member of the Landscape Institute