Urban morphology aims to describe and explain urban form and has the potential to be applied in urban planning and landscape design. However, the Eurocentric perspective of classic theories limits its validity and related design practice in a contemporary multicultural context. The lack of a universal approach to depicting the urban form structure is one of the fundamental aspects of such a theoretical flaw. This article addresses the historical and regional incompatibility of urban form structures and discusses its causes by analyzing the basic standpoints of the historical geography perspective and the construction perspective in urban morphology. Based on the critical review, "separation" and "connection" are established as two criteria for specifying urban form units, and the compositional nature of the built environment is highlighted. Further, by reconciling the functional and morphological aspects, or that is, linking urban form with the agents that shape it, a coordinated approach is proposed with rational parts from classical theories, and a corresponding quantitative method taking the distribution of different sizes of units as a key indicator is also developed to aid urban form subdivision.

This article examines contemporary trends, challenges, and opportunities in Landscape Architecture education in the United States through the perspectives of program administrators at accredited institutions. Building on the foundational 1997 Landscape Journal article by Michael Richard Hodges and Miriam Easton Rutz, which documented the early development of the Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture (CELA), this study revisits long-standing themes, including faculty development, recruitment, institutional support, and disciplinary identity while documenting how these issues have evolved in the current higher education of Landscape Architecture. Drawing on a 17-question survey distributed to all accredited Landscape Architecture programs in the USA, the study captures responses from 41 program administrators, representing a broad cross-section of institutional contexts.

Survey findings reveal persistent administrative challenges related to student and assistantship funding, staff support, faculty recruitment, and enrollment, alongside emerging concerns about faculty burnout, workload imbalance, and evolving expectations for teaching, research, and service. Studio-intensive curricula, accreditation demands, and the interdisciplinary nature of Landscape Architecture place unique pressures on faculty and administrators, often exacerbated by limited institutional recognition and resource constraints. The study also documents varied approaches to recruitment, new faculty onboarding, and mid-career faculty support, highlighting practices such as mentorship, course releases, start-up funding, and sabbatical opportunities.

In addition, the article situates the USA's administrative challenges within a broader international and theoretical context, drawing on scholarship that frames Landscape Architecture as a synthesizing discipline balancing scientific rigor and creative practice. Emerging technological pressures, including the growing influence of artificial intelligence, further underscore the need for curricular adaptation and professional development. By documenting shared experiences and strategies among program leaders, this article contributes to a growing collective understanding of Landscape Architecture education and emphasizes the importance of sustained dialogue, administrative support networks, and adaptive leadership to strengthen the discipline's future.

Flood disaster databases constitute a critical foundation for enhancing disaster risk reduction (DRR) capacities. Although China has achieved initial progress in developing the National Comprehensive Natural Disaster Risk Database, the fine-grained construction of its data systems and the efficacy of its comprehensive service applications require further exploration and refinement. Given the relatively mature disaster database systems in some developed countries, which offer valuable reference, this study adopts a full-cycle management perspective to construct a novel comparative research framework on the differences. The article points out that the development of China’s flood disaster databases faces bottlenecks: inaccuracies in pre-disaster risk forecasting, lags in mid-disaster emergency response, and difficulties in institutionalizing post-disaster experiences. These challenges expose a full-cycle data fragmentation issue. Conversely, countries like the USA and the Netherlands have accumulated extensive pioneering experience in data standardization, dynamic simulation, collaborative governance, and societal application. Simultaneously, its practical bottlenecks regarding data coverage, response timeliness, and equity in resource allocation provide critical reflections for China’s localized exploration. Accordingly, this study proposes a localization pathway for China’s flood disaster database system construction: institutionally, it is imperative to accelerate the establishment of a government-led, multi-departmental collaborative management mechanism; technologically, priority should be given to advancing flood risk mapping and developing multi-source data integration platforms; in terms of social aspect, regional pilot programs should be conducted in key river basins to evaluate strategic feasibility. These strategies aim to steadily enhance the comprehensive efficacy of China’s flood disaster databases, thereby facilitating their progressive optimization.