Environmental Values and Landscape Architecture: A New Ecological Paradigm Study

In recent decades, landscape design theory has been affected by an increase in pro-environmental values. Currently, concepts of ‘sustainability’ and ‘ecosystem services’ exert a strong influence. These concepts involve sustaining current human behaviors within the constraints of ecological limits and maintaining or enhancing the goods and services that humans receive from ecosystems, respectively. In this way, they are most characteristic of anthropocentric environmental worldviews with high degrees of concern for the instrumental values of ecosystems, which are indicative of shallow ecology. Previous researchers have advanced theoretical characterizations of the environmental values of landscape architects in terms of environmental ethics. However, as of yet, no statistics-based model has been developed for this purpose. In order to advance such a model, and in the effort to further characterize the environmental values of landscape architects, two studies were performed. Both utilized data collected with the New Ecological Paradigm (revised-NEP) survey. In the first study, a Shallow v. Deep Worldview model was used to characterize revised-NEP survey responses of landscape architecture students and alumni practitioners from Utah State University (USU) in terms of shallow or deep ecology. The results indicate that the groups exhibited essentially anthropocentric environmental values, which were characteristic of shallow ecology worldviews. In the second study, the revised-NEP survey was used to assess the environmental worldviews of general education and landscape architecture students at USU. The results indicate that the landscape architecture students exhibited greater pro-environmental worldviews, which were correlated to differences in political orientation between the groups. Overall, the results of the two studies support the notions that the study or practice of landscape architecture is correlated to greater pro-environmental values than are common for general higher education students, and that, in general, current landscape architecture students and practitioners exhibit environmental values that are characteristic of ecologically-concerned, yet essentially anthropocentric, shallow ecology worldviews

Blacksmith Fork - Little Bear Watershed Alternative Futures Study

The following project was carried out in conjunction with the Logan River Task Force, under the chairmanship of Dr. Frank Howe. The Logan River Task Force was formed to develop an overall approach for managing the Logan River that balances ecology with people\u27s social values for the river including public safety and property protection. Although the work of the Task Force has focused primarily on the Logan river, the Bioregional Planning graduate students have provided the Task Force with contextual information about the watershed, by exploring alternative futures for the Blacksmith Fork and Little Bear watersheds. This work expands on a previous bioregional planning study of the Logan, Blacksmith Fork and Little Bear watersheds that was carried out by bioregional planning students, Aubrey Christensen and Lyndi Perry in 2014-15. This report represents work that graduate students accomplished during two semesters (Fall 2015- Spring 2016) of the Master of Bioregional Planning (MsBRP) program at Utah State University. During the Fall semester, the MsBRP students collaborated with graduate students in the Landscape Architecture program to develop scenarios that addressed future growth in a portion of the study area, southern Cache Valley. Together they prepare and participate in a Geodesign workshop with community members, experts, faculty at USU. (For an overview of the workshop see the report: South Cache Valley Project- Planning with Geodesign, 2015.) The results of the workshop informed the landscape analysis, and ultimately the alternative futures that were developed for the Blacksmith Fork and Little Bear watersheds.https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/laep_bioregional/1000/thumbnail.jp