{"title":"Using virtual reality to characterize cultural ecosystem services provisioning by green stormwater infrastructure – Lessons for participatory design","authors":"Lauren Krauss, Megan A. Rippy, Megan Blumenauer","doi":"10.1016/j.ufug.2025.129087","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study explores the potential of virtual reality (VR) to capture community perceptions of cultural ecosystem services provisioning (e.g., aesthetics, sense of place) by green stormwater infrastructure. Surveys were administered to > 500 people at the University of Maryland, each of whom viewed a bioretention system (UMD West or UMD Creek) or its corresponding virtual model. Two models were prepared for each real site (bioretention-only and situated within the landscape) to explore the importance of incorporating situational context into VR simulations. Our results suggest that virtual bioretention models reproduce many of the patterns in cultural ecosystem services provisioning observed in real bioretention systems; they co-provide aesthetic and sense of place services and were perceived to provide more services relative to parking lots and messy greenspace than manicured greenspace. However, perceptual accuracy was inconsistent, both across bioretention sites and model simulations, with the situated model of UMD Creek exhibiting significantly elevated cultural ecosystem service scores. The bias associated with this particular model appears to reflect the absence of contextual factors (e.g., signs of neglect, messy complexity, and anthropogenic noise) that were present in the real environment. The direction of the bias has implications for participatory design – namely, care should be taken with situational context to avoid overpromising services to viewers. These results have important implications for landscape professionals who are interested in leveraging new technologies for community-centered design as well as the communities they serve who have the potential to benefit from participatory design approaches and more culturally sensitive stormwater infrastructure.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":49394,"journal":{"name":"Urban Forestry & Urban Greening","volume":"113 ","pages":"Article 129087"},"PeriodicalIF":6.7000,"publicationDate":"2025-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Urban Forestry & Urban Greening","FirstCategoryId":"93","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1618866725004212","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
This study explores the potential of virtual reality (VR) to capture community perceptions of cultural ecosystem services provisioning (e.g., aesthetics, sense of place) by green stormwater infrastructure. Surveys were administered to > 500 people at the University of Maryland, each of whom viewed a bioretention system (UMD West or UMD Creek) or its corresponding virtual model. Two models were prepared for each real site (bioretention-only and situated within the landscape) to explore the importance of incorporating situational context into VR simulations. Our results suggest that virtual bioretention models reproduce many of the patterns in cultural ecosystem services provisioning observed in real bioretention systems; they co-provide aesthetic and sense of place services and were perceived to provide more services relative to parking lots and messy greenspace than manicured greenspace. However, perceptual accuracy was inconsistent, both across bioretention sites and model simulations, with the situated model of UMD Creek exhibiting significantly elevated cultural ecosystem service scores. The bias associated with this particular model appears to reflect the absence of contextual factors (e.g., signs of neglect, messy complexity, and anthropogenic noise) that were present in the real environment. The direction of the bias has implications for participatory design – namely, care should be taken with situational context to avoid overpromising services to viewers. These results have important implications for landscape professionals who are interested in leveraging new technologies for community-centered design as well as the communities they serve who have the potential to benefit from participatory design approaches and more culturally sensitive stormwater infrastructure.
期刊介绍:
Urban Forestry and Urban Greening is a refereed, international journal aimed at presenting high-quality research with urban and peri-urban woody and non-woody vegetation and its use, planning, design, establishment and management as its main topics. Urban Forestry and Urban Greening concentrates on all tree-dominated (as joint together in the urban forest) as well as other green resources in and around urban areas, such as woodlands, public and private urban parks and gardens, urban nature areas, street tree and square plantations, botanical gardens and cemeteries.
The journal welcomes basic and applied research papers, as well as review papers and short communications. Contributions should focus on one or more of the following aspects:
-Form and functions of urban forests and other vegetation, including aspects of urban ecology.
-Policy-making, planning and design related to urban forests and other vegetation.
-Selection and establishment of tree resources and other vegetation for urban environments.
-Management of urban forests and other vegetation.
Original contributions of a high academic standard are invited from a wide range of disciplines and fields, including forestry, biology, horticulture, arboriculture, landscape ecology, pathology, soil science, hydrology, landscape architecture, landscape planning, urban planning and design, economics, sociology, environmental psychology, public health, and education.