The LDI builds upon established faculty records of land design education, research, and service. These include interdisciplinary environmental land research (resource management, sustainable agriculture, ecological footprinting, ecological restoration, greenway design, urban forestry) and cultural research (culturally specific land studies, cultural and historic landscape preservation).

Current research in the ecological dimension includes the design of resource-balancing land management systems that integrate environmental monitoring, ecological baselining of present conditions, and benchmarking of desired performance for sustaining and regenerating land-based resources. It includes environmental education, ecological restoration, and exploration of the life cycle implications of specific development strategies. In the cultural dimension, this includes interdisciplinary research to increase the ability of public schools and not for profits to educate students about relationships between daily decisions and the health and productivity of land based systems and resources (such as the White River in Central Indiana); and to help teachers meet integrated science proficiency guidelines.