{"title":"Tree selection for a virtual urban park: Comparing aided and unaided decision-making to support public engagement in greenspace design","authors":"","doi":"10.1016/j.ufug.2024.128447","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>To meet urban resilience goals and the needs of growing populations, cities aim to develop multifunctional greenspaces and urban forests. Urban greening is seen to improve the quality of life for residents, contribute significantly to biodiversity conservation and socio-ecological resilience, and meet climate mitigation and adaptation goals. There is also a growing recognition of the importance of involving individuals and communities in the design and planning of greenspace in cities, particularly in the configuration of parks and in identifying the types of vegetation found there. In these contexts, it is increasingly common to engage the public with virtual 3D landscapes, with the ultimate goals of crowdsourcing preferences, knowledge, and patterns of use. There have been few studies to systematically examine how the public interacts with these virtual spaces, and their decision-making needs. Experts have a fluency with a broad range of ecosystem services that flow from urban greenspaces, as well as a familiarity with trees and other landscape elements. This is not the case for the public, who may instead rely on familiar and visually salient landscape attributes. This is in keeping with the concept of constructed preferences, where judgements are formed as they are elicited and are heavily influenced by available information. This study thus compares aided and unaided decision-making by the public in a virtual 3D urban park. Participants were invited to plant trees in park; some participants were provided with a brief description of a key ecosystem function of each tree (along with an illustration of that tree), other participants were only provided the illustration. Three key insights emerge from this research: (i) public tree preferences are sensitive to whether information is provided or withheld, (ii) in the absence of information, easy to evaluate characteristics (i.e., visually salient characteristics) played a large role in tree selection within the virtual urban parks, and (iii) for most participants, and consistent with other studies, aesthetics was the most important attribute guiding tree choice. These insights can support improved public engagement in landscape design and planning, particularly in crowdsourced and virtual settings.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":49394,"journal":{"name":"Urban Forestry & Urban Greening","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":6.0000,"publicationDate":"2024-07-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Urban Forestry & Urban Greening","FirstCategoryId":"93","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1618866724002450","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
To meet urban resilience goals and the needs of growing populations, cities aim to develop multifunctional greenspaces and urban forests. Urban greening is seen to improve the quality of life for residents, contribute significantly to biodiversity conservation and socio-ecological resilience, and meet climate mitigation and adaptation goals. There is also a growing recognition of the importance of involving individuals and communities in the design and planning of greenspace in cities, particularly in the configuration of parks and in identifying the types of vegetation found there. In these contexts, it is increasingly common to engage the public with virtual 3D landscapes, with the ultimate goals of crowdsourcing preferences, knowledge, and patterns of use. There have been few studies to systematically examine how the public interacts with these virtual spaces, and their decision-making needs. Experts have a fluency with a broad range of ecosystem services that flow from urban greenspaces, as well as a familiarity with trees and other landscape elements. This is not the case for the public, who may instead rely on familiar and visually salient landscape attributes. This is in keeping with the concept of constructed preferences, where judgements are formed as they are elicited and are heavily influenced by available information. This study thus compares aided and unaided decision-making by the public in a virtual 3D urban park. Participants were invited to plant trees in park; some participants were provided with a brief description of a key ecosystem function of each tree (along with an illustration of that tree), other participants were only provided the illustration. Three key insights emerge from this research: (i) public tree preferences are sensitive to whether information is provided or withheld, (ii) in the absence of information, easy to evaluate characteristics (i.e., visually salient characteristics) played a large role in tree selection within the virtual urban parks, and (iii) for most participants, and consistent with other studies, aesthetics was the most important attribute guiding tree choice. These insights can support improved public engagement in landscape design and planning, particularly in crowdsourced and virtual settings.
期刊介绍:
Urban Forestry and Urban Greening is a refereed, international journal aimed at presenting high-quality research with urban and peri-urban woody and non-woody vegetation and its use, planning, design, establishment and management as its main topics. Urban Forestry and Urban Greening concentrates on all tree-dominated (as joint together in the urban forest) as well as other green resources in and around urban areas, such as woodlands, public and private urban parks and gardens, urban nature areas, street tree and square plantations, botanical gardens and cemeteries.
The journal welcomes basic and applied research papers, as well as review papers and short communications. Contributions should focus on one or more of the following aspects:
-Form and functions of urban forests and other vegetation, including aspects of urban ecology.
-Policy-making, planning and design related to urban forests and other vegetation.
-Selection and establishment of tree resources and other vegetation for urban environments.
-Management of urban forests and other vegetation.
Original contributions of a high academic standard are invited from a wide range of disciplines and fields, including forestry, biology, horticulture, arboriculture, landscape ecology, pathology, soil science, hydrology, landscape architecture, landscape planning, urban planning and design, economics, sociology, environmental psychology, public health, and education.