A growing concern? Examining the influence of lawn size on residential water use in suburban Boston, MA, USA

Runfola, Daniel Miller; Polsky, Colin; Nicolson, Craig; Giner, Nicholas M.; Pontius, Robert Gilmore; Krahe, Joseph; Decatur, Albert

doi:10.1016/j.landurbplan.2013.07.006

Cited by 40 publications

(25 citation statements)

References 32 publications

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“…Such behaviors are concerning because lawns not only cover a larger extent of land than any other irrigated crop in the United States (19,20), but also are expected to expand in coming decades (21). Thus, the potential homogenization of residential lawn care has emerged as a major concern for carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, and water flows (22)(23)(24). The conventional wisdom asserts that a singular human-environment process-urbanization-is generating similar human behaviors (such as lawn care Significance This paper offers conceptual and empirical contributions to sustainability science in general and urban-ecological studies in particular.…”

Section: Sustainability Lawn Care and Urban Ecological Homogenizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessing the homogenization of urban land management with an application to US residential lawn care

Polsky

Grove

Knudson

et al. 2014

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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166

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Changes in land use, land cover, and land management present some of the greatest potential global environmental challenges of the 21st century. Urbanization, one of the principal drivers of these transformations, is commonly thought to be generating land changes that are increasingly similar. An implication of this multiscale homogenization hypothesis is that the ecosystem structure and function and human behaviors associated with urbanization should be more similar in certain kinds of urbanized locations across biogeophysical gradients than across urbanization gradients in places with similar biogeophysical characteristics. This paper introduces an analytical framework for testing this hypothesis, and applies the framework to the case of residential lawn care. This set of land management behaviors are often assumednot demonstrated-to exhibit homogeneity. Multivariate analyses are conducted on telephone survey responses from a geographically stratified random sample of homeowners (n = 9,480), equally distributed across six US metropolitan areas. Two behaviors are examined: lawn fertilizing and irrigating. Limited support for strong homogenization is found at two scales (i.e., multi-and single-city; 2 of 36 cases), but significant support is found for homogenization at only one scale (22 cases) or at neither scale (12 cases). These results suggest that US lawn care behaviors are more differentiated in practice than in theory. Thus, even if the biophysical outcomes of urbanization are homogenizing, managing the associated sustainability implications may require a multiscale, differentiated approach because the underlying social practices appear relatively varied. The analytical approach introduced here should also be productive for other facets of urban-ecological homogenization.sustainability science | land-change science | urban ecology | private land management

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Section: Sustainability Lawn Care and Urban Ecological Homogenizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessing the homogenization of urban land management with an application to US residential lawn care

Polsky

Grove

Knudson

et al. 2014

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

Self Cite

166

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“…However, lawns also have negative effects due to the high use of pesticides (e.g., 17% of the insecticides used in USA are used for lawns; Milesi et al 2005, but the usage of pesticides vary a lot between different regions of the world), fertilizers, vast water consumption (Runfola et al 2013) and potentially high management costs. Thus, it is of interest to know the areas of lawns in cities to be able to understand the extent of the potentially positive and negative effects.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Estimating urban lawn cover in space and time: Case studies in three Swedish cities

et al. 2017

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Lawns are considered monocultures and lesser contributors to sustainability than diverse nature but are still a dominating green area feature and an important cultural phenomenon in cities. Lawns have esthetical values, provide playground, are potential habitat for species, contribute to carbon sequestration and water infiltration, but also increase pesticides, fertilization, are monocultures and costly to manage at the same time. To evaluate the potential impact of lawns, whether positive or negative, it is of interest to estimate the total lawn cover in cities and its change over time. This is not a straightforward process, e.g., because many lawns are small and covered by trees. In this study we review the existing literature of lawn cover in cities and the different methodologies used for cover estimation. We found both pros and cons with NDVI and LiDAR data as well as manually interpreted aerial photos. The total cover of lawns in three case study cities was estimated to 22.5%. By extrapolating these percentages to all Swedish cities lawn cover was estimated to 2589 km 2 (0.6% of the terrestrial surface). The approximated total municipal management cost of lawns in all Swedish cities was 910,000,000 USD/ year. During 50 years lawn area almost doubled in relative cover and 56% of them were continuously managed. Since lawns constitute large parts of the urban greenery and are costly to manage it is highly relevant to consider their social, ecological and cultural value compared to alternatives, e.g., meadows with less intensive management.

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“…Second , some larger cities (i..e, Monterrey, Mexico City) are experiencing intra-boundary changes in exposure, possibly representing the impact of suburbanization. While suburbanization has been examined in terms of its environmental impacts (Runfola and Hankins, 2010; Runfola et al, 2013), the influence of suburbanization on disaster exposure has not been a topic of study. Third , decreases of population exposure in Acapulco de Juarez are potentially attributable to other factors, notably increasing drug violence (Chi et al, 2013), suggesting an understudied interplay between political instability, migration, and the environment.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Influence of Internal Migration on Exposure to Extreme Weather Events in Mexico

Runfola

Romero‐Lankao

Jiang

et al. 2015

Society & Natural Resources

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A growing concern? Examining the influence of lawn size on residential water use in suburban Boston, MA, USA

Cited by 40 publications

References 32 publications

Assessing the homogenization of urban land management with an application to US residential lawn care

Assessing the homogenization of urban land management with an application to US residential lawn care

Estimating urban lawn cover in space and time: Case studies in three Swedish cities

The Influence of Internal Migration on Exposure to Extreme Weather Events in Mexico

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