Recipient Organization
UNIV OF MINNESOTA
(N/A)
ST PAUL,MN 55108
Performing Department
Forest Resources
Non Technical Summary
The overarching research goal is to understand social mechanisms that influence human interactions with urban ecosystems. The focus in this project is human behavior in relation to natural resources, knowledge creation, and the dynamics of social organization and governance around dynamic natural resources issues. The big picture questions asked include:What human behaviors influence ecosystem components such as water quality, biodiversity, and pollination?What values, norms and attitudes influence these behaviors?How can human behavior(s) be influenced to achieve desired social and ecosystem outcomes?How do we create knowledge and make decisions as social units and across social units for change?What social institutions do we use and capacity for governance exists to respond to environmental challenges while protecting human wellbeing and ecosystem functions?These questions are especially important in our evolving understanding of dynamics within human and natural systems. At this point in time, we have several key knowledge gaps as articulated in the previous questions. In this project the questions supported by this research are the following:Q1: How do residential yard care change behaviors and municipal policies foreshadow the drivers of alternative futures for urban ecosystems? Q2. How do anticipatory governance attributes vary in municipal policies for vegetation management and in public land manager narratives? Q3: What facilitates or prevents institutional transitions to low-input vegetation, from fine fescue turfgrass to urban forests? Q4: What are park user and land manager perceptions of 'flowering bee lawn' innovations and pollinator conservation?This project works with public land mangers, decision-makers, park users, and homeowners to identify what facilitates and what hinders sound management of urban private and public lands. We do this study with user surveys, in-depth interviews, and demonstration plots for evaluation. The outcomes should be more effective and efficient governance and market systems in order to achieve human well-being and healthy environments that anticipate future challenges for society and our environment.
Animal Health Component
50%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
50%
Applied
50%
Developmental
(N/A)
Goals / Objectives
The overarching research goal is to understand social mechanisms that influence human interactions with ecosystems. The focus in this project is the urban ecosystem, specifically human behavior in relation to natural resources, knowledge creation, and the dynamics of social organization and governance around dynamic natural resources issues.Objective 1. Homeowner behaviors and city ordinances foreshadowing alternative urban futures While the 'American Residential Macrosystem' is characterized by a relatively homogeneous mixture of grass lawns, shrubs, trees and impervious surfaces, there is important variation in the parcel, neighborhood and regional scale factors influencing change and stability in this mixture. Factors driving change in residential land use and management practices include shifts in human population and social composition, desires for biodiversity and water conservation and regulations governing water use, quality, and storm water run-off as well as ecological dispersal of organisms. These phenomena will interact with factors that contribute to stability, such as social norms, property values, neighborhood and city covenants and laws, commercial interests, and climatic and edaphic constraints, to influence the structure and function of the American Residential Macrosystem.Objective 1.1 What homeowner factors contribute to maintenance and/or change in the urban residential yard?Objective 1.2 How do city ordinances and policies foreshadow and shape alternative futures for the American Residential Macrosystem?RationaleThe homogeneous structure and function of the American Residential Macrosystem is driven by human actions. Residential land management is fundamentally a local process, an expression of the decisions of individual land managers and households. However, decisions on yardscaping and other management may be tied not only to variables at the scale of individuals or households, but also to broader social structures (e.g. family dynamics), socioeconomic status (e.g. wealth), neighborhood-level norms, municipal institutions (e.g., ordinances), and the regional and national political economy (e.g. drivers of [sub]urbanization and associated marketing and retail activity) (Grove et al. 2006, Zhou et al. 2009, Larson et al. 2010, Roy Chowdhury et al. 2011, Cook et al. 2012, Sisser et al. 2016).Objective 2. Anticipatory governance of urban public lands vegetation.The future of urban ecosystems will depend, in part, on how well cities and their public land managers are able to anticipate and adapt to the range of challenges that confront vegetation management. Our overarching goal is to determine how city policies and their public managers address future challenges. To achieve this goal, we address two research objectives:Objective 2.1 In cities, what is the capacity for anticipatory governance in vegetation management ordinances and policies for public lands?Objective 2.2 How do public land managers exhibit 'institutional entrepreneurship' characteristics that support anticipatory vegetation management?Rationale. In cities, the capacity for anticipatory governance for vegetation management influences the ability to make decisions, develop policies and conduct management actions - both public and private - for trees and other vegetation in an attempt to counteract future challenges such as climate change. Anticipatory governance supports decision-making with an emphasis on long-term thinking that promotes reflexivity through foresight, engagement, and integration. Cities with this capacity exhibit informal and formal monitoring that is incorporated into decision-making, engagement of diverse stakeholders in deliberation about values at risk and future scenario analysis, and multi-scalar networks that promote exchange and social learning.At the same time, individual public land managers can take on leadership roles to support anticipatory governance of public lands vegetation. Entrepreneurship has been suggested in the natural resources literature as an alternative to traditional notions of leadership (Evans et al. 2015). The idea of entrepreneurship can be subdivided according to various contexts, including policy, social, and institutional entrepreneurship (Westley et al. 2013). Institutional entrepreneurs, in this study, may be present in municipal vegetation managers for public land. These actors are imbedded in complex urban systems where a multitude of actors, policies, and resources ultimately determine institutional change.Objective 3. Facilitators and barriers for institutional transitions to low-input, fine fescue vegetationIn this project, we connect computer science, breeding and genetics, management, extension, social science, and marketing research in an interesting and new way. We are leveraging existing resources (NTEP and other data) to improve fine fescue breeding and find the best fit for home lawns, public parks, and other turf areas throughout temperate climates.Objective 3.1 Identifying barriers for homeowners and public land managers (Nelson) SCRI GRANT Investigates public land manager benefits and barriers to implementation of fine fescue lawns on public and larger institutional private lands. In cities across the U.S. temperate zone appropriate for fine fescues, we will collaborate with College and University Sustainability Offices and Facilities Management Offices to develop experimental plots designed to allow participants to evaluate the social, economic, and environmental barriers and benefits of transitioning to fine fescue lawns. Higher education institutions are an excellent venue for engaging a range of consumers in deliberations about alternative futures. Public and private landowners participate in these institutions as students, staff, alumni, parents, and service providers visit or work at these sites, often for conferences about innovation and critical issues society is confronting.Objective 4. Park user and land manager perceptions of 'flowering bee lawns'Public parks account for a substantial portion of the green space in many cities, and present a promising opportunity to implement flowering lawns on a large scale. The lawns will be one way to provide pollinator habitat and help conserve pollinators across the urban landscape (Spivak pers. comm). Yet, when making vegetation decisions, land managers must balance the potential ecological benefits with park visitors' uses of parkland and their vegetation preferences. To date, there has been considerable research regarding individual preferences and social norms regarding lawn aesthetics and management practices (Roy Chowdhury et al. 2011; Cook et al. 2011), but flowering lawns are relatively novel as a vegetation type and to date, very little research has examined public perceptions of flowering lawns.Objective 4.1 In Minneapolis parks, what are park user perceptions about flowering bee lawns?Objective 4.2 How do these perceptions vary across parks, user type, values, and socio-demographic factors?RationaleFlowering lawns-turf interseeded with low-growing flowers-emerged as a recent practice to support nutritional needs of bee pollinators in urban areas. The University of Minnesota Bee Lab researchers have been exploring a variety of grass and flower species that fit the complexity of an urban park context (Wolfin et al. 2018 presentation). Yet, in the context of public parks, land managers must also consider park visitors' vegetation preferences and their uses of parklands when making decisions about vegetation. To date, there has been considerable research regarding individual preferences and social norms regarding lawn management practices and preferences, but flowering lawns are relatively novel as a vegetation type and very little research has been conducted so far on public perceptions of flowering lawns.
Project Methods
These projects are in collaboration with an interdisciplinary team that varies depending on the topic. The study methods that I am responsible for are outlined below.Objective 1. Homeowner behaviors and city ordinances foreshadowing alternative urban futures Study sites. Minneapolis/Saint Paul, Boston, Baltimore, Miami, Phoenix, and Los Angeles.To better understand household level factors that lead to transitions in yard management and ecological structure and function, we evaluate homeowner narratives about the transitions, or stability, in their yards.We will determine how household decision-making, landscaping knowledge, and norms are shaped by institutional processes. Specifically,Municipal and/or state regulations (e.g., on irrigation, vegetation structure) and non-regulatory programs (e.g. rebates for turf conversion).Activities and informational materials of environmental NGOs (e.g. native plant societies,) and relevant municipal and local extension agencies (e.g. city sustainability offices).Marketing promoted by garden centers and landscape professionals (e.g. yard-care services).Interview transcriptions will be coded to identify the formal and informal rules and suggestions from multi-scalar governance actors, whereas the survey data provide details on how residents rely on different information sources and services. Household surveys will be done with a online/phone survey. We will generate coded variables capturing key dimensions of household-institutional interactions and institutional factors in stability or change, with questions about transitions, household values/knowledge, constraints and effectiveness, and institutional interactions. These data will be link to ecological and land cover variables using multivariate statistical models.For municipal governments, the following types of data will be collected: ordinance details (e.g. types of regulations and programs) and municipal attributes (e.g. size, location in meto area). For non-governmental entities, we will identify the municipal, metro-based, and national organizations that address landscape management - from local garden clubs to national Audubon-type programs. Key aspects of programs will be coded (e.g. the missions, norms, and practices). This approach will identify widespread trends in landscape transitions across diverse cities of the U.S, in addition to trends across areas with certain demographic and geographic factors.Objective 2. Anticipatory governance of urban public lands vegetation.Study sites: 19 municipalities in the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area, Minnesota, distributed across the urban gradient and ordinal zones.Document review. Documents provide a public record of decisions, actions, and institutional structure. We will use content analysis for a systematic treatment of the text, and evidence of anticipatory governance attributes - specifically, visions, goals, monitoring, use of data in decision-making, scenario analysis, public deliberation, instrumental and/or communicative learning about parts of the system.The primary documents to review include the Comprehensive Plan, Natural Resource Management Plan(s) (specifically forest and vegetation management), City Ordinances, and City Annual Income and Budgets. In addition to document review, we will gather information on relevant city policies, programs, public lands, infrastructure, and staff, using online information or documents available through municipal offices.Interviews. We will gather qualitative data through in-depth, semi-structured interviews with public land managers. These interviews focus on: (1) observations of natural and social system responses to climate change, (2) perceptions of how the city responds anticipated changes, and (3) perceptions of anticipatory governance attributes -visions, goals, monitoring over time, scenario analysis, public deliberation, integration within city units and across scales, instrumental and/or communicative learning. In addition, interviews will be reviewed for 'institutional entrepreneurial' attributes: innovative practice, cultural skills, political and social skills, and networks. The interviews will be conducted in-person. Transcriptions will be coded using an anticipatory governance framework as well as with a modified grounded theory approach that allows key concepts and interactions to emerge from the data, adding to the framework.Objective 3. Facilitators and barriers for institutional transitions to low-input, fine fescue vegetationStudy Sites: Rutgers U, Purdue, U, U of Wisconsin-Madison, U of Minnesota, Utah State U, Oregon State U, Stanford U.We collaborated with College and University Sustainability Offices, Sustainability Education, and Facilities Management Offices across the northern U.S. to develop demonstration plots designed to allow participants to evaluate fine fescue lawns.Cooperators select sites currently dominated by Kentucky bluegrass and/or perennial ryegrass. The plot area (about 500 ft2) will be treated with glyphosate and seeded with a 3-way mixture of hard, Chewings, and strong creeping red fescues at a rate of 5 lb./1000 ft2 (seed will be shipped to cooperators from the University of Minnesota). Establishment practices for each campus grounds will be followed. Additionally, we will provide signs for each location. Each sign will also have a QR-code that can direct passers-by to more information about fine fescues.In 2018, we will conduct a minimum of four interviews for each study site: administration, facilities services, sustainability office, sustainability education. The interview questions will cover the following areas: turfgrass management (knowledge, capabilities; experience, decision-making); goals for turfgrass on campus; perceived barriers or challenges for using low-input grasses; alignment in expectations for turfgrass. Finally, on campuses interested in public engagement, we will host focus groups for municipal public land managers and public institution facilities managers. The focus group topics include institutional transition issues: current practices, experimentation with alterative practices, expectations alignment, network learning. The group conversations will be recorded but no individual identifiers will be used. Focus group transcripts will be analyzed with qualitative data analysis techniques, using content analysis programs.Objective 4. Park user and land manager perceptions of 'flowering bee lawns'Study sites: Audubon Park, Kenwood Park, Matthews Park, Willard Park - MinneapolisIn 2017, we conducted in-person surveys in four Minneapolis parks where pilot flowering lawns were installed. The parks varied in size, amenities, and the sociodemogrphic profile of the surrounding neighborhood. We varied the sampling time of day, day of the week, and the month. Surveyors circulated throughout the park to maximize the range of potential park users. All park users surveyed were adults and proficient in English. The survey instrument was composed of 27 questions. Participants took less than 5 minutes on average to complete the survey. In total, 537 visitors participated. Data analysis and publication will continue in 2018.In the summer of 2018, we will conduct the public land managers' focus groups: operations leads, planners, and supervisors from the MSPB staff. In addition we will host several focus groups for land managers from the greater Minneapolis-St Paul metro area. In total, we will conduct eight focus groups. The conversation will focus on pollinator conservation, flowering lawns, perceptions of necessary changes in management practices in order to implement flowering lawns. Group conversations will be recorded but no individual identifiers will be used. Focus group transcripts will be analyzed with qualitative data analysis techniques, using content analysis programs.