TY - JOUR
T1 - Encouraging ecological landscape designs on underutilized urban lands
T2 - Homeowner preferences for verge conversion programs
AU - Doll, Claire
AU - Rollins, Curtis
AU - Burton, Michael
AU - Pannell, David
AU - Rehdanz, Katrin
AU - Meyerhoff, Jürgen
N1 - Funding Information:
This article draws on research supported by the Forrest Research Foundation , the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada , and a University of Western Australia Research Collaboration Award .
Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 The Authors
PY - 2023/9
Y1 - 2023/9
N2 - Increasing native vegetation cover on verges, which are underutilized urban lands, can help build resilient cities under urban densification and climate change. As these areas are sizeable, many cities have programs aimed at encouraging ecologically beneficial landscape designs on verges, which are publicly owned but privately managed lands located on the edge of private properties. However, adoption rates of these programs remain low. Using choice experiments, we assess preferences for a range of financial, labour, and technical attributes of verge conversion programs. Overall, we find that offering financial assistance and free or discounted native plant seedlings are likely to be the most effective means of encouraging native garden adoption on verges. We also show that homeowners are influenced by their neighbours’ decisions to adopt ecological landscape designs. Through latent class analysis, we find that different program components have different impacts on adoption rates for different segments of the population. Together, our results suggest governments can increase adoption of native gardens in urban areas through a variety of processes, including financial and non-financial supports, as well as efforts focused on enhancing early adoption to harness effects of social norms. Using a variety of programs or strategies is likely to be most effective, since different segments of the population will respond to different programs.
AB - Increasing native vegetation cover on verges, which are underutilized urban lands, can help build resilient cities under urban densification and climate change. As these areas are sizeable, many cities have programs aimed at encouraging ecologically beneficial landscape designs on verges, which are publicly owned but privately managed lands located on the edge of private properties. However, adoption rates of these programs remain low. Using choice experiments, we assess preferences for a range of financial, labour, and technical attributes of verge conversion programs. Overall, we find that offering financial assistance and free or discounted native plant seedlings are likely to be the most effective means of encouraging native garden adoption on verges. We also show that homeowners are influenced by their neighbours’ decisions to adopt ecological landscape designs. Through latent class analysis, we find that different program components have different impacts on adoption rates for different segments of the population. Together, our results suggest governments can increase adoption of native gardens in urban areas through a variety of processes, including financial and non-financial supports, as well as efforts focused on enhancing early adoption to harness effects of social norms. Using a variety of programs or strategies is likely to be most effective, since different segments of the population will respond to different programs.
KW - Adoption
KW - Biodiversity
KW - Choice experiment
KW - Ecological landscape design
KW - Verges
KW - Water conservation
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85166947464&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.ufug.2023.128049
DO - 10.1016/j.ufug.2023.128049
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85166947464
SN - 1618-8667
VL - 87
JO - Urban Forestry and Urban Greening
JF - Urban Forestry and Urban Greening
M1 - 128049
ER -