The role of turfgrasses in environmental protection and their benefits to humans: Thirty years later

Abstract

Beard and Green compiled one of the earliest reviews on the environmental and societal (cultural) benefits that living turfgrass systems (e.g., home lawns, athletic fields, golf courses, roadsides, and grounds) provide to humans and associated contemporary issues with turfgrass. Today, the benefits of vegetation systems are called ecosystem services, and the associated negative aspects are called disservices. Since 1994, a significant amount of research has been conducted to further understand these ecosystem services and disservices and discover new ecosystem services and disservices, which we summarize and identify the knowledge gaps in this review. Turfgrass systems provide positive economic benefits to the US economy and help increase property values; however, many of these ecosystem services are environmental and societal. Some environmental services include (1) improving soil health, quality, and stability; (2) oxygen production; (3) reducing stormwater runoff; (4) filtering water to protect waterways and recharging groundwater; (5) providing evaporative cooling and reducing sunlight glare to improve human comfort levels; (6) offering vertebrate and invertebrate habitat; and (7) offering solutions for recycling wastewater and biosolids. Some societal (cultural) services include (1) outdoor spaces that improve human mental and physical health, (2) increasing community and social harmony, (3) helping deter crime, and (4) reducing human contact with noxious weeds and human-disease insect vectors. Research, cooperative extension, and education efforts must be increased on these topics to continue to provide additional evidence of these ecosystem services to the public, policymakers, turfgrass practitioners, homeowners, students, and future generations.