Eliza Breder is a Doctoral Candidate in the Department of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning with a designated emphasis in Global Metropolitan Studies at the University of California Berkeley, where she was a LAU Just Climate Futures Fellow. She works in disaster studies, critical cartography, planning and design. Her research reveals how legacies of hydro-colonialism underpin social vulnerability in the face of climate risk. Legacies of hydro-colonialism continue to shape landscapes at the nexus of water and human ecologies furthering the complexities of de-tangling from technocratic norms in climate mitigation planning.

Eliza’s current research project “The Drainage Archive” documents the long history of social and spatial displacement through colonial control of Deltas. Historically distinct but structurally similar, the case comparison between the Saskatchewan River Delta and the Everglades Delta allows for the investigation of hydro-colonial typologies and their political-economic structures across North America. Rooted in Clyde Woods’ framework of Delta Capitalism, water control boards and management structures are chronicled for their hidden and overt power imbalances.

After working in water conservation research and water management for five years, Eliza worked at the Florida Institute for Built Environment Resilience, and Design and Planning Institute focused on equitable climate adaptation before entering Berkeley’s PhD program.She is the co-author in the book chapter, ‘Fuera SpaceX: Resisting Climate Coloniality via Terra Nullius within Contested Boca Chica State Park’ in Confronting Climate Coloniality. Her research on the relationship between historic ecologies, reparations, and climate change adaptation planning has been published in peer-reviewed venues including Disaster Prevention and Management, Area, American Water Resources Association, and Water Science. Her teaching brings this scholarship to landscape architecture and urban planning, encouraging critical thinking in designing an equitable, critical, and climate prepared future.