Connect climate science with sustainable solutions

Accessibility controls

Pause motion

Motion: On

Play motion

Motion: Off

Increase text contrast

Contrast: Standard

Reset text contrast

Contrast: High

Apply site-wide

Science helps us understand environmental change. Planning and design help communities visualize and respond to it.

The Department of Earth Sciences, Planning, and Design brings these disciplines together. Our students pursue degrees in either geosciences or landscape architecture, with each program maintaining its distinct curriculum and accreditation. So whether your goal is to study Earth’s systems, shape communities through planning, or design resilient landscapes, you’ll have the opportunity to develop specialized expertise while engaging with the broader environmental challenges that connect both fields. The world needs people who can bridge knowledge and action–here you’ll learn how.

Academics

Explore undergraduate and graduate degrees in geoscience and landscape architecture, an accelerated BLS to master’s, and graduate certificates.

explore programs

People

Our faculty in both landscape architecture and geosciences spread their teaching and scholarship across the region, the country, and the world.

meet the faculty

Research

Areas of expertise among our faculty include topics such as climatology, geobiology, hydrology, solid earth, and more.

explore topics

News

URI water expert from Nepal shares insight into recent flood in South Asian nation - For URI hydrologist Dr. Soni Pradhanang, the recent avalanche and flooding in Nepal is both a scientific event and a deeply personal one. Raised in Kathmandu, Pradhanang studies flooding, water resources and mountain hazards. Alongside Ph.D. student Pratik Singh Thakuri, also from Nepal, she is examining the Aug. 26 event using satellite imagery and hydrologic expertise.
Tracking nutrient pollution: Q&A with Carissa Sherman - Carissa Sherman is bringing GIS and environmental data to bear on one of Narragansett Bay's most persistent water-quality challenges.

see all news