Urban park managers are tasked with maintaining ecological function and quality of parks while also meeting visitor preferences. The purpose of this study was to better understand how managers currently manage vegetation in parks in Portland, Oregon. The study used a mixed methods approach to analyze and integrate qualitative semi-structured interviews with quantitative approaches (e.g., field data collection, statistical analysis). Qualitative research was conducted by interviewing urban park employees of different management levels such as supervisors, horticulturalists, ecologists, and technicians. Twenty-one urban park manager semi-structured interviews were completed regarding 15 parks, which included natural-passive use, recreational-active use, and multi-use park types. Interview responses were coded for themes and patterns of meaning. The coding was validated by randomly selecting and sharing 5% of the interviews and the codebook with two other researchers. Mixed methods were used to evaluate the urban park manager interview data in the context of visitor interview and plant community composition data collected at the same parks. Non-metric multidimensional scaling ordinations were then used to identify urban park manager and visitor perspectives correlated with different park types and their vegetation.
Results/Conclusions
Across park types, managers discussed maintenance as a favorite aspect of plant management, while ecosystem management was often described by managers of natural-passive use parks. Some managers indicated that they would make no changes to plant management, but the majority provided detailed recommendations such as enhancing maintenance, increasing staffing, adding plants, updating infrastructure, and improving plant species selection. There are opportunities to better meet the preferences of both managers and visitors by continuing to maintain large trees and trail/path vegetation for accessibility, removing invasive/harmful plants, and improving plant selection to include those which are heartier, more colorful, produce flowers, and are disease-resistant, climate-adapted, and provide habitat for a variety of species. While urban park managers discussed how they incorporated visitor preferences and accessibility in plant management, they also described limitations such as funding, staff resources, and undesirable visitor behaviors. Increased communication and collaboration among governmental agencies, non-profit organizations, and community members, as well as continued investment in park management and interdisciplinary mixed methods research have the potential to enhance the many ecological and social benefits of urban parks.