Challenging Lawn and Order: Environmental Discourse and Lawn Care Reform in Canada

Sandberg, Linda; Foster, Jennifer

doi:10.1080/09644010500175692

Cited by 23 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 12 publications

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“…Municipal regulations often also dictate landscape structure or appearance through legal limits on grass height to avoid "nuisance" yards (Feagan and Ripmeester 1999;Robbins et al 2001;Robbins 2007). Recent regulations in Canada banned cosmetic use of pesticides (Sandberg and Foster 2005) in an attempt to address environmental concerns related to lawn care. For similar reasons, water-use restrictions in the Boston area now limit irrigation of lawns and gardens (Hill and Polsky 2007).…”

Section: Municipal and Broader-scale Driversmentioning

confidence: 99%

Residential landscapes as social-ecological systems: a synthesis of multi-scalar interactions between people and their home environment

2011

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Residential landscapes are a common setting of human-environment interactions. These ubiquitous ecosystems provide social and ecological services, and yard maintenance leads to intended and unintended ecological outcomes. The ecological characteristics of residential landscapes and the human drivers of landscape management have been the focus of disciplinary studies, often at a single scale of analysis. However, an interdisciplinary examination of residential landscapes is needed to understand the feedbacks and tradeoffs of these complex adaptive social-ecological systems as a whole. Our aim is to synthesize the diversity of perspectives, scales of analysis, and findings from the literature in order to 1) contribute to an interdisciplinary understanding of residential landscapes and 2) identify research needs while providing a robust conceptual approach for future studies. We synthesize 256 studies from the literature and develop an interdisciplinary, multi-scalar framework on residential landscape dynamics. Complex human drivers (attitudinal, structural, and institutional factors) at multiple scales influence management practices and the feedbacks with biophysical characteristics of residential landscapes. However, gaps exist in our interdisciplinary understanding of residential landscapes within four key but understudied areas: 1) the link between social drivers and ecological outcomes of management decisions, 2) the ecosystem services provided by these landscapes to residents, 3) the interactions of social drivers and ecological characteristics across scales, and 4) generalizations of patterns and processes across cities. Our systems perspective will help to guide future interdisciplinary collaborations to integrate theories and research methods across geographic locations and spatial scales.

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Section: Municipal and Broader-scale Driversmentioning

confidence: 99%

Residential landscapes as social-ecological systems: a synthesis of multi-scalar interactions between people and their home environment

2011

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“…Bormann et al, 1993;Stein, 1993;Jenkins, 1994;Walker & Simo, 1994;Teyssot, 1999;Feagan & Ripmeester, 1999;Robbins & Birkenholtz, 2003;Robbins & Sharp, 2003;Sandberg & Foster, 2005;Steinberg, 2006). Lawns are one of the most familiar landscape features on the North American continent; estimates of total acreage vary, but the US probably has more acres in lawn than in many other crops, including cotton (Robbins & Birkenholtz, 2003).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 91%

Under the Lawn: Engaging the Water Cycle

Moran

2008

Ethics, Place & Environment

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This paper explores how several water technologies mediate people's relationship with nature in the domestic sphere. While septic systems are critical to the built environment in exurban North America, they remain largely unacknowledged. Their hidden participation in the backyards of private homes silently facilitates-yet outwardly denies-people's continued engagement in the water cycle. Now, a growing array of alternative practices (e.g. composting toilets and greywater systems) are being embraced by individuals choosing to intervene in their local ecology in an active manner. This study shows how the domestic realm can be a site of imaginative engagement and shifting consciousness, and moreover, serve as a catalyst in society's transition toward a meaningful sustainability.

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“…As highlighted by some of the papers in this issue, reconciling opposing socioculturally-and ecologically-derived expectations for sustainable landscapes may be the greatest challenge that needs to be overcome for achieving more widespread adoption of ecological landscaping practices and products (Hitchmough 2008;Martin 2008). However, increased study of these challenges, along with development of strategies for and case studies documenting successful changes, provide insights into future directions for initiating positive changes in urban landscape design and management practices and public policies (Rappaport 1993;McKenzie-Mohr and Smith 1999;Martin et al 2003;Sandberg and Foster 2005;Shuster et al 2008). We suggest that greater appreciation for scientific principles in general and specifically for those related to ecological landscaping will underlie increased success for such efforts.…”

Section: Conclusion Challenges and Future Directionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In turn, information about these negative effects can be used as educational inputs of information to landscape parcels that might catalyze landscaping changes (Fig. 1L) as well as lead to public policy changes such as bans on pesticide use (Sandberg and Foster 2005). Emphasis of systematic feedback relationships among landscaping inputs, parcel characteristics and outputs within the framework presented here (Fig.…”

Section: A Social-ecological Framework For Ecological Landscapingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The personal aesthetic, environmental, and social-responsibility values of a landscape manager play a central role in decisions about landscaping (Larsen and Harlan 2006;Clayton 2007;Hitchmough 2008) as does the manager's financial abilities to purchase desired inputs (i.e., a luxury effect; Hope et al 2003). In addition, a certain amount of "peer pressure" is exerted on landscape managers via neighborhood covenants , local "weed laws" (Rappaport 1993;Sandberg and Foster 2005), historical cultural legacies, and advertising by the landscaping industry (Jenkins 1994;Larsen and Harlan 2006;Robbins 2007). These external social factors interact to generate social norms (or standards) about "proper" landscaping practices and products that responsible citizens are expected to follow (Byrne 2005; see below).…”

Section: A Social-ecological Framework For Ecological Landscapingmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Introduction to Ecological Landscaping: A Holistic Description and Framework to Guide the Study and Management of Urban Landscape Parcels

Byrne¹,

Grewal²

2008

CATE

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Urbanized ecosystems and urban human populations are expanding around the world causing many negative environmental effects. A challenge for achieving sustainable urban social-ecological systems is understanding how urbanized landscapes can be designed and managed to minimize negative outcomes. To this end, an interdisciplinary Ecological Landscaping conference was organized to examine the interacting sociocultural and ecological causes and consequences of landscaping practices and products. This special issue of Cities and the Environment contains a diverse set of articles arising from that conference. In this introductory paper, we describe the meaning of ecological landscaping and a new conceptual framework that helps organize the topic's complex issues. The essence of ecological landscaping is a holistic systems-thinking perspective for understanding the interrelationships among physical-ecological and sociocultural variables that give rise to the patterns and processes of biodiversity, abiotic conditions, and ecosystem processes within and among individually-managed urban landscape parcels. This perspective suggests that 1) variables not considered part of traditional landscaping and 2) the effects of landscaping within an individual parcel on variables outside of it must both be considered when making design and management decisions about a parcel. To illustrate how these points help create a more holistic, ecological approach to landscaping, a traditional ecosystem model is used to create a framework for discussing how sociocultural and physical-ecological inputs to a landscape parcel affect its characteristics and outputs. As exemplified by papers in this issue, an integrated sociocultural-ecological approach to the study of urban landscaping practices and products is needed to 1) understand why and how humans design and mange urban landscape parcels, 2) describe how the combined characteristics and outputs of many parcels give rise to the emergent ecosystem properties of urbanized areas, and 3) develop effective educational programs that catalyze adoption of sustainable landscaping choices and practices. The paper concludes with a discussion of challenges for the future of ecological landscaping research and practice, and a list of preliminary guidelines for ecological landscaping. We hope that this special issue will increase understanding, visibility, and research about the value of an ecological approach to urban landscaping.

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Challenging Lawn and Order: Environmental Discourse and Lawn Care Reform in Canada

Cited by 23 publications

References 12 publications

Residential landscapes as social-ecological systems: a synthesis of multi-scalar interactions between people and their home environment

Residential landscapes as social-ecological systems: a synthesis of multi-scalar interactions between people and their home environment

Under the Lawn: Engaging the Water Cycle

Introduction to Ecological Landscaping: A Holistic Description and Framework to Guide the Study and Management of Urban Landscape Parcels

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