The rise of vacant urban property in America is both a fiscal challenge and a design and planning opportunity

Recent years have placed scenes of urban decay in once successful cities such as Detroit into the popular consciousness. But how can municipalities manage their vacant urban properties in ways that are beneficial to people and the environment, in a fiscally challenging time? Joan Iverson Nassauer writes that urban planners must realize that vacant neighborhoods have not returned to nature and that without the right management, they can undermine human health, economic development, and local ecosystems. She argues that design and planning for highly vacant neighborhoods means that we need to recognize new types of urban landscapes and the associated socio-ecological systems that can be shaped and reshaped to provide environmental and cultural benefits

Landscape Care: Perceptions of Local People in Landscape Ecology and Sustainable Development

An understanding of how people perceive their local landscapes is necessary to the holistic landscape concepts of landscape ecology and sustainable development. Local landscape perceptions are not likely to be limited to judgments of short-term land economies; long-term and non-economic view, including aesthetic perception, may be more important in local knowledge. Local aesthetic perceptions are not likely to be limited to western conventions of the scenic. Rather aesthetic perceptions may reflect everyday concerns with agricultural productivity or ecological fitness. Analysis of local people's descriptions of 706 rural Minnesota landscapes suggests the degree to which a landscape looks cared for is closely related to its aesthetic quality. Care was perceived in sometimes contradictory landscape characteristics -- neatness, soil and water conservation, or apparent naturalness of the landscape. These characteristics were combined in a geographic information system based model to demonstrate the pervasive local appreciation for landscape aesthetic qualities, and to provide objective documentation of aesthetic quality for local planning. Care may be a global construct of aesthetic quality that is exhibited in different forms in different local locations. If so, identifying forms of care and introducing new forms of care may be a useful took for landscape ecology and sustainable development.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/49348/1/Landscape_Land_Use_1988.pd

Monitoring the Success of Metropolitan Wetland Restorations: Cultural Sustainability and Ecological Function

In an interdisciplinary project to develop protocols for long-term cultural and ecological monitoring of wetland restorations in Minnesota, we compared restored and reference wetlands on several ecological and cultural measures including land-use context, cultural perceptions, and management practices. Cultural measures were drawn from our surveys of visitors, neighbors, planners, and managers of the wetlands. This paper discusses their perceptions of six metropolitan wetlands (four recent restorations and two reference sites), how cultural measures of their perceptions compared with selected site characteristics and biodiversity measures, and what results suggest for wetland design and management. Overall, sites that were perceived as more well-cared-for and as a good place to enjoy nature were perceived as more attractive. In addition, objective site characteristics, like cultural cues and natural landscape context, were related to perceived attractiveness. While plant species richness was not significantly related to perceived wetland attractiveness for our sites, bird species richness was related to attractiveness.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/49338/1/wetlands.pd

Culture and changing landscape structure

add information herePeer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/49247/1/Land_Ecology_1995.pd

Landscape Planning and Conservation Biology: Systems Thinking Revisited

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/49337/1/Conservation_Bio_2006.pd

The Appearance of Ecological Systems as a Matter of Policy

Environmental policy should explicitly address the appearance of the landscape because people make inferences about ecological quality from the look of the land. Where appearances are misleading, failing to portray ecological degradation or ecological health, public opionion may be ill-informed, with consequences for environmental policy. This paper argules that while ecology is a scientific concept, landscape perception is a social process. If we do not recognize this difference, we have problems with the appearance of ecological systems. Three influential problems are discussed: 1) the problem of the false identity of ecological systems, 2) the problem of design and planning as deceit about ecological systems, and 3) the problem of invisible ecological systems. These problems for environmental policy may be resolved in part if landscape planners and policy-makers use socially recognized signs to display human intentions for ecological systems. Specifically, planning and policy can include socially-recognized signs of beauty and stewardship to display human care for ecological systems. An example in United States federal agricultural policy is described.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/49352/1/LE92Appearance.pd

Using normative scenarios in landscape ecology

The normative landscape scenario is one of many types of scenario methods that are used by landscape ecologists. We describe how normative landscape scenarios are different from other types and how these differences create special potential for engaging science to build landscape policy and for exploring scientific questions in realistic simulated landscapes. We describe criteria and a method for generating normative scenarios to realize this potential in both policy and landscape ecology research. Finally, we describe how the method and criteria apply to an interdisciplinary project that proposed alternative scenarios for federal agricultural policy and related futures for agricultural watersheds in Iowa, USA.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/43160/1/10980_2004_Article_5268544.pd

The Landscape in 2025: Alternative Future Landscape Scenarios, A Means to Consider Agricultural Policy

Agricultural policy implies new future scenarios for agricultural landscapes each time a new federal farm bill or emergency aid to farmers is debated. Future landscape scenario studies can suggest policies that could achieve specific goals or make the implications of proposed policy apparent. This paper compares the 1994 landscape with three alternative future landscape scenarios for two Iowa Corn Belt agricultural watersheds. Each alternative emphasizes different ecological, hydrological, and and crop production goals.USEPA Science to Achieve Results (STAR) programPeer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/49342/1/JSWC57_Nassauer.pd

The Economics of Native Plants in Residential Landscape Designs

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/50426/1/HelfandParknassauer06.pd

Experience of localized flooding predicts urban flood risk perception and perceived safety of nature-based solutions

Understanding community members' flood risk perceptions is critical for developing new approaches to managing flood risks for climate resilience. “Risk as feelings” has informed research on how people perceive flood risks based on intuition and personal experiences, complementing experts' technical assessment. However, attention has been primarily on riverine and coastal flooding. We expand the “risk as feelings” concept to investigate community members' risk perceptions of urban pluvial flooding as well as perceived safety of novel vs. familiar nature-based solutions (NBS). For the novel practice, we focus on floodable sites that temporarily inundate urban open spaces under storm conditions. For the familiar practice, we focus on retention ponds that store excessive runoff under storm conditions. Data were collected through visualization-assisted surveys of residents from high and low flood hazard areas in three US cities (N = 884). We found that over half of respondents indicated some degree of worry about stormwater-related damage, and overall, respondents perceived floodable as less safe than retention ponds under storm conditions. Further, respondents who had more frequently experienced localized flooding near their homes were more worried about potential property damage caused by flooding. They also perceived floodable sites as less safe under storm conditions. However, more frequent experience of localized flooding was not associated with perceived safety of retention ponds under storm conditions. Some other contextual and socio-demographic factors (e.g., prior stormwater-related property damage, knowledge of and involvement in stormwater management issues, gender, age, race, and having children) also had notable effects on flood risk perception and perceived safety of NBS. We discuss the implications of these findings for urban flood risk management and NBS development