ILI CPD Webinar | Designing landscapes in a changing climate: Geomorphology by Professor Mary Bourke
1-2pm Thursday 12th February
Designing landscapes in a changing climate: River Processes and Geomorphology by Mary Bourke, Professor in Geomorphology at Trinity College Dublin
1-2pm Thursday 12th February 2026
Designing landscapes in a changing climate
This presentation introduces landscape architects to the dynamic behaviour of rivers. We will explore the challenges and benefits of designing landscapes in a changing climate through the lens of river dynamics and nature‑based solutions (NbS).
We will begin by examining how climate and land use change is altering hydrological regimes and sediment dynamics, intensifying extremes such as floods and droughts and increasing pressures on both catchments and urban river corridors. We will outline how river systems adjust over time and how these dynamics shape flood risk, habitat patterns and landscape character in valley bottoms and urban corridors.
We will explore specific NbS measures at the catchment scale, (e.g., wetland, floodplain restoration, riparian woodland and runoff attenuation features). A focus will be on how these interventions work with hydrological and geomorphic processes to slow, store and safely convey water while enhancing ecological connectivity.
Finally, we will look at how flow-sensitive street design, multifunctional parks, setback embankments can integrate flood functions, public space and amenity.
Photo: Australia
Photo: Myrtleville, Ireland
Biography
Professor Mary Bourke
Discipline of Geography,
School of Natural Sciences,
Trinity College Dublin
Professor Bourke is an Earth and Planetary Geomorphologist with expertise in extreme environments on Earth and Mars. She has published over 90 manuscripts on landscapes in Antarctica, Australia, Namibia, Mars and Ireland. She currently works on the impact of climate change on the river and coastal systems of Ireland.
She received her BA and MA in Geography from University College Dublin. She undertook her Ph.D. at the Australian National University investigating catastrophic floods in the Central Australian deserts, for which she received the university prize for outstanding postgraduate research in Earth Sciences. In 1998 she moved to Washington DC to take up a post-doctoral position at the Smithsonian Institution where she researched Martian landscapes. She then took up a lectureship in the School of Geography, University of Oxford followed by a Senior Scientist position at the Planetary Science Institute, Arizona where she worked for nine years on NASA projects until her return to Ireland.
Professor Bourke was Founding Chair of the International Association of Geomorphologist’s Working Group on Planetary Geomorphology, Founding President of the Geomorphological Association of Ireland and has served on the editorial advisory panels for the Journal of Aeolian Research, Earth Surface Processes and Landforms and the Journal of Earth Surface Dynamics. She has published her research in Nature and Science and has had her research highlighted in the Wall Street Journal, the Guardian, The Irish Times and Independent, on NBC Nightly News and on the BBC and RTE.
