Calculating Professional Development Hours (PDH)

Professional Development Hours (PDH) are the unit of measure used by LA CES to determine the amount of credit a course carries.

Health, Safety, and Welfare subjects include:

• Building codes
• Code of ethics
• Codes, acts, laws, and regulations governing the practice of landscape architecture
• Construction administration, including construction contracts
• Construction documents
• Design of environmental systems
• Environmental process and analysis
• Erosion control methods
• Grading
• Horticulture
• Irrigation methods
• Land planning and land use analysis
•  Landscape preservation, landscape restoration and adaptive reuse
• Lateral forces
• Natural hazards – impact of earthquake, hurricane, fire, or flood related to site design
• Pedestrian and vehicular circulation
• Planting design
• Resource conservation and management
• Roadway design principles
• Site accessibility, including Americans with Disabilities Act standards for accessible site design
• Site and soils analysis
• Site design and engineering, including materials, methods, technologies, and applications
• Site security and safety
• Storm water management, surface and subsoil drainage
• Structural systems considerations
• Surveying methods and techniques as they affect landscape architecture
• Sustainable design, including techniques related to energy efficiency
• Use of site materials and methods of site construction
• Vegetative management
• Wetlands
• Zoning as it relates to the improvement and/or protection of the public health, safety, and welfare
• Other matters of law and ethics that contribute to the health, safety, and welfare of the public

The following subjects should not be designated as HSW:

• Accounting/financial planning
• Basic AutoCAD
• Expanding a design professional's business
• General office management
• Insurance
• Laws related to arbitration, mediation, liens (unless they relate to safeguarding the health, safety, and welfare of the public), real estate, real estate development
• Limiting the design professional's liability
• Marketing and public relations
• Personal development
• Project management related to profitability and maximizing fees
• Risk management
• Succession planning