From Levees to Living Landscapes: How Mapping Influences Floodplain Planning on the Nooksack River

Abstract

This thesis explores how mapping can support more equitable, adaptive, and relational approaches to floodplain governance in the Nooksack River watershed. In the context of intensifying climate impacts and aging flood infrastructure, the project investigates how boundary-spanning practices—particularly the weaving of Western and Indigenous sciences into visual representations—can support shared understanding across jurisdictions, disciplines, and worldviews. Drawing on a community-engaged, mixed-methods research process with the Floodplain Integrated Planning (FLIP) team, this study integrates participant observation, interviews, applied historical ecology, and iterative mapping. It analyzes how visual tools mediate systems understanding, elevate underrepresented knowledges, and shape decision-making in transboundary flood risk planning. Findings suggest that maps can act not only as technical tools, but also as relational infrastructure—evoking memory, fostering dialogue, and enabling co-produced solutions across diverse knowledge holders. This research demonstrates how visualization practices can reframe risk, reintroduce kincentric perspectives, and challenge the infrastructural legacies of colonialism in floodplain management. Limitations include the time-intensive nature of iterative collaboration, the challenges of cross-border data integration, and ongoing power asymmetries in participatory planning processes. The implications for landscape architecture lie in positioning mapping as a practice of translation, care, and historical reckoning—central to building just and resilient futures in dynamic floodplain systems.