Comparison of Attitudes towards Roadside Vegetation Management across an Exurban Landscape

Abstract

Exurban development is the fastest growing land use across the United States (US). Its prevalence on the East Coast is susceptible to natural disaster events such as hurricanes and nor’easters. However, the socio-ecological processes related to disaster mitigation within exurban areas remain understudied. Our objective was to integrate social and landscape data to compare resident attitudes towards utility roadside vegetation management across four areas in the state of Connecticut, US. We collected data from residents using two mail surveys completed in 2017 and 2019 (n = 1962). From the survey questions, three attitude variables measured perceptions of the utility vegetation management process, and tradeoffs between protecting trees and maintaining reliable power. Across all locations, respondents with more favorable attitudes toward vegetation management were more likely to have greater knowledge about trees, and beliefs that trees should be used for human benefit; land cover characteristics and sociodemographic variables were less strongly associated with attitudes scores. Respondents differed among study areas in their preferences for aesthetics of roadside trees and their basic beliefs regarding the importance of trees. The results suggested that social processes within the exurban landscapes are spatially heterogeneous. Therefore, local variation in residential preferences for vegetation management may influence support for natural disaster management policy.

Comparing the Structure, Function, Value, and Risk of Managed and Unmanaged Trees along Rights-of-Way and Streets in Massachusetts

“…Cumulatively, trees in utility plots had nearly twice as much structural value as those in control plots. Additionally, even though residents sometimes question the aesthetics of utility tree pruning [53], there were no differences in likelihood of failure ratings between trees in control and utility plots.…”

Integrated Forest Vegetation Management: Stages and Development Prospects

“…A Comparison of Vegetation Management Strategies for Utility Rights-of Way», 2020; кластер С2), отношениям участников и наблюдателей за процессом управления нежелательной растительностью (в т.ч. общественному восприятию итогов такого управления) [4,6,7,13,30,31,41,42], экологическим последствиям (в т.ч. повышению природоохранной ценности территорий; например, [14, 16-18, 23, 28, 31, 32, 35-38, 41] ------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------------- -представление системы как серии циклических шагов, а не как линейной последовательности, что позволяет организовать управление растительностью на территории ЛИО принципиально на любом этапе очистки указанной территории от НДКР;…”

A Statistical Framework for Evaluating the Effectiveness of Vegetation Management in Reducing Power Outages Caused during Storms in Distribution Networks

“…In another study that addressed reducing outages during storms, the authors of [27] developed a hybrid physics-based and data-informed Monte Carlo simulation (MCS) to examine how pole replacements in the electric grid would have affected outages in Connecticut during Hurricane Sandy, and suggested including vegetation conditions as a future research path. Other aspects of the interaction between vegetation and reliable power delivery that have been researched include comparing attitudes of residents about roadside vegetation management programs [28] and developing methodologies to reduce the expense of monitoring vegetation near power lines [29].…”