Egypt faces escalating climate pressures, including rising temperatures, water scarcity, coastal vulnerability, and urban heat stress, yet responses remain uneven across scales and sectors. Within this context, landscape architecture holds significant but underutilized potential to address climate challenges through integrated, site-responsive approaches that link ecological systems with urban development. The article “Engaging Egypt’s Landscape Architects to Combat Climate Change” highlights how the profession remains insufficiently embedded within national climate strategies and planning frameworks.
Despite growing recognition of climate risks at national, regional, and local levels, landscape architects are often excluded from decision-making processes, limiting the scope of design-led adaptation. Current planning practices tend to prioritize engineering and policy responses, overlooking the spatial and ecological dimensions that landscape architecture can address, such as green infrastructure, water-sensitive design, and the mitigation of urban heat islands.
Institutional and professional gaps further constrain engagement. The absence of clear roles, limited interdisciplinary collaboration, and insufficient policy integration reduce the visibility and impact of landscape-based approaches. At the same time, educational and professional systems do not fully support the development of climate-oriented design expertise, reinforcing a disconnect between environmental challenges and spatial practice.
Yet, opportunities remain to reposition landscape architecture as a critical interface between environment, infrastructure, and society. By integrating ecological thinking into urban and regional planning, landscape architects can contribute to more adaptive, resilient, and context-sensitive responses to climate change. Strengthening this role requires institutional recognition, capacity building, and greater alignment between policy frameworks and spatial practices, ensuring that climate adaptation is grounded in the realities of Egypt’s diverse landscapes.
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Amir Gohar, PhD. FHEA. AMLI. 