Exploring peoples preferences on specific attributes of urban forests in Washington DC: A conjoint approach

Abstract

The study uses conjoint analysis to determine the preferences of different groups of people on specific urban forest attributes such as plant variety, planting pattern, color variety and growth form. A year-long face-to-face survey was employed to collect data and conjoint analysis was conducted to estimate the relative importance of the attributes as well as the part-worth values of the specific levels under each attribute. Furthermore, the respondents were segmented into various groups based on demographics and the corresponding preferences were estimated for each group. The study revealed that, all the aforementioned attributes were important with plant variety being the most important and growth form being the least important. Specifically, the respondents preferred urban forests to be predominantly trees and grass, planted in patches that are scattered throughout the city, mainly green with many other colors, and trimmed. Various sub-groups of respondents showed slight variations in preferences which entail specific adjustments on management strategies and maintenance techniques.   Key words: Conjoint analysis, urban forest management.