Arboriculture & Urban Forestry 44(2): March 2018 of spontaneous grasses and herbaceous vegeta- tion have higher pollutant-filtration potential than that of mown lawn areas, though less than that of forest patches (Robinson and Lundholm 2012). If tree cover is used to quantify ecosystem services (e.g., carbon sequestration, pollution removal, and energy-use avoidance), then sites with greater tree cover, what Kim et al. (2015) categorize as “unat- tended sites with vegetation,” are ranked higher than other types of vacant land, including derelict, natural (wetlands, hillsides, floodplains), trans- portation corridors, and post-industrial sites. But communities of spontaneous vegetation with lesser tree cover can also provide regulating ecosystem services. Vacant lots that have an “open, flat, [and] highly-vegetated” structure can reduce ambient air temperatures (Burkholder 2012). Various urban spontaneous vegetation habitats provide specific and overlapping services and can be managed as a portfolio to optimize benefits across a city. MATERIALS & METHODS This paper reports on four grassroots projects producing ecological knowledge about urban spontaneous vegetation. To better understand the design and outcomes of these projects, the follow- ing interview method was used. Semi-structured interviews lasting between 45 and 75 minutes were conducted in person and by phone. The interview guide was developed using the five elements of PPSR (Shirk et al. 2012) (Table 1). Each interview was audio recorded, with verbal permission, and notes were taken during each conversation. Inter- view audio recordings were initially transcribed verbatim, but have been lightly edited for clar- ity and readability in this paper. When setting up the interviews, participants were told that the interviews were for the purposes of submitting a Table 1. Summary of interview guide. PPSR element Inputs Activities Outputs Outcomes Impacts Theme Project objective Project infrastructure Observations Skills, abilities, and knowledge Long-term change Case Studies The project names were Common Studio's Global Urbanium (“Common Studio”), Gewildgroei, Next Epoch Seed Library (NESL), and Spontaneous Ur- ban Plants (SUP) (Table 2). Common Studio is a design firm. The two-person practice is based in Los Angeles, California, U.S., with global projects. For this study, the firm’s Global Urbarium project was the primary focus. Global Urbarium consists of studies of urban spontaneous vegetation in the cities of Bangalore, India; Los Angeles, U.S.; and Rome, Italy. The term “urbarium” is a play on her- barium. Common Studio creates physical herbaria of urban spontaneous vegetation, and showcases photographs of the analog products via Instagram, a content-sharing website and application. Common Example question What questions or issues are you trying to answer or address? Why did you choose the model you did? What types of data are collected? What are your metrics of success? What impacts are you hoping to see? 119 manuscript to a special issue of this journal. Par- ticipants were also informed via email correspon- dence when an earlier version of this paper was conditionally accepted by this journal. Results from analysis of interview transcripts and other data sources are discussed at the project level. When an interview excerpt is presented outside specific discussion of a project, a code attribut- ing the quote to a respondent is used (e.g., R1). In addition to interview transcripts, other data were derived from organizational presenta- tions; archival materials, such as organizational websites, print publications, and social media; articles written about the organizations; and par- ticipant observation (processing and packaging seeds; presenting at a salon discussion about grass- roots production of ecological knowledge). The data for this project was primarily textual. For analysis, textual evidence for each category of the PPSR framework (Shirk et al. 2012) was assem- bled in a matrix and compared across projects. ©2018 International Society of Arboriculture
March 2018
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