Nature connection, experience and policy encourage and maintain adaptation to drought in urban agriculture

Abstract

Climate change is challenging the sustained delivery of ecosystem services from urban agriculture. Extreme, prolonged drought in combination with high heat events affect urban crop production due to limited water availability and affect environmental management and adaptation to environmental conditions. In this study, we use urban community gardens in central coast California as a system to investigate how people are adapting their management behaviors over three time periods-before, during and after the longest drought in California's recent history. We specifically ask how behavioral change is impacted by water policies and gardener characteristics (including gardening experience, formal education, drought concern, and relationship to nature). Through structural equation modeling and multivariate analyses, we show that nature relatedness and gardening experience impact drought concern which in turn impact behavioral change, and potentially gardener's ability to sustainably manage water and to adapt to drought conditions. Planting motivations are also important, influencing people's adoption and retention of practices over time. Yet where concern may be absent, water policies are able to promote and maintain behavioral change and conservation-based practice adoption. Thus, environmental awareness and experience in combination with policies are needed to promote and support proactive behavioral change and adaptation to create resilient urban food production systems under climate change.

Gardening can relieve human stress and boost nature connection during the COVID-19 pandemic

“…Surprisingly, both new and seasoned gardeners faced on average a similar number of challenges – mostly around accessing materials to garden (e.g., 55 % reported difficulty accessing seeds). Previous work shows that less experienced gardeners perceive more challenges in crop production (e.g., pest control) ( Liere et al, 2020 ), and that there are differences in how novice versus experienced gardeners adapt to specific horticultural challenges (e.g., drought) ( Egerer et al, 2020 ). Here, however, the similar number of challenges faced by all gardeners in our sample may be because the most common challenges during the pandemic are not those related to garden management or production, which might be more easily solved by additional horticultural knowledge and experience.…”

“…Future research should investigate whether food benefits from gardening can improve food security throughout the “waves” of the pandemic worldwide, especially in the Global South. Third, previous work shows that gardeners with decades of gardening experience tend to utilize knowledge intensive practices, while those more recent to gardening readily adopt technological practices ( Egerer et al, 2020 ). It may be interesting to follow how experience within the pandemic context shapes changes in specific management practices, and how this may impact ecological characteristics and functions of gardens.…”

Urban Gardening in a Changing Climate: A Review of Effects, Responses and Adaptation Capacities for Cities

“…For the environmental elements, UA is increasingly vulnerable to environmental change impacting cities [35], and urban vegetation is sensitive to high heat and water stress [23], among other threats (Table 2). Mainly the effects of temperature and precipitation variation at a local scale could limit urban gardens [36,37] because species have temperature and moisture thresholds that allow or inhibit their survival [38].…”

Gardening Can Relieve Human Stress and Boost Nature Connection During the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…Surprisingly, both new and seasoned gardeners faced on average a similar number of challengesmostly around accessing materials to garden (e.g., 55 % reported difficulty accessing seeds). Previous work shows that less experienced gardeners perceive more challenges in crop production (e.g., pest control) (Liere et al, 2020), and that there are differences in how novice versus experienced gardeners adapt to specific horticultural challenges (e.g., drought) (Egerer et al, 2020). Here, however, the similar number of challenges faced by all gardeners in our sample may be because the most common challenges during the pandemic are not those related to garden management or production, which might be more easily solved by additional horticultural knowledge and experience.…”