Dog Walkers’ Views of Urban Biodiversity across Five European Cities
Abstract
:1. Introduction
- (a)
- the ecosystem context, that is, regarding four different urban greenspace types (park meadows, wastelands, streetscapes, forests);
- (b)
- the geographical context, that is, regarding five cities (Bari, Berlin, Edinburgh, Ljubljana, Malmö) in five European countries; and
- (c)
- the biodiversity context, that is, regarding three levels of plant species richness (low, medium, high) within each of the four ecosystem types?
2. Materials and Methods
2.1. Field Survey
2.2. Database
2.3. Statistical Analyses
3. Results
3.1. Ecosystem Context
3.2. Geographical Context
3.3. Biodiversity Context
4. Discussion
5. Conclusions
Author Contributions
Funding
Acknowledgments
Conflicts of Interest
References
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Variables | Question | Coding/Scale | Remarks |
---|---|---|---|
Biodiversity valuation (dependent) | How do you like each of these three variations of [insert ecosystem type]? | Valuation on a 7-point Likert scale regarding the general valuation of three biodiversity levels; handled as quasi-metric variable | Assessed in the first, nature-related part of the questionnaire that employed stimuli material depicting three levels of plant species richness in four ecosystem types in five cities; in-depth analyses of this data with regard to differences in biodiversity valuation in a companion study [44]. |
Dog walking (explanatory) | Do you regularly walk a dog? | 1 = no; 2 = yes as answer options were translated to regular dog walkers (respondent walks a dog regularly), other people (respondent does not walk a dog regularly), N/A | |
Ecosystem type | Park meadow, wasteland, streetscape, forest | Ecosystem type attributed to questions on dependence of the stimuli material chosen. All respondents answered the questions that related to park meadows and to one of the three remaining ecosystem types, respectively. | |
City | Bari, Berlin, Edinburgh, Ljubljana, Malmö | Filled in by field survey staff |
All Cities | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
Ecosystem Type | n | Chi2 | df | p |
Park meadows | 3708 | 2.212 | 1 | 0.137 |
Wastelands | 1226 | 5.109 | 1 | 0.024 |
Streetscapes | 1237 | 1.071 | 1 | 0.301 |
Forests | 1240 | 1.400 | 1 | 0.237 |
Bari | Berlin | Edinburgh | Ljubljana | Malmö | |||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Ecosystem Type | n | F Value | p | n | F Value | p | n | F Value | p | n | F Value | p | n | F Value | p |
Park meadows | 861 | 0.086 | 0.770 | 1284 | 5.058 | 0.024 | 454 | 1.73 | 0.189 | 549 | 3.503 | 0.061 | 482 | 1.713 | 0.191 |
Wastelands | 293 | 8.194 | 0.005 | 437 | 0.001 | 0.972 | 149 | 0.186 | 0.667 | 169 | 0.25 | 0.618 | 155 | 0.047 | 0.828 |
Streetscapes | 289 | 0.001 | 0.970 | 414 | 1.156 | 0.283 | 150 | 1.13 | 0.289 | 191 | 5.809 | 0.017 | 162 | 1.219 | 0.271 |
Forests | 279 | 0.204 | 0.652 | 430 | 0.018 | 0.894 | 154 | 0.171 | 0.680 | 190 | 0.885 | 0.348 | 163 | 0.0 | 0.991 |
Ecosystem Type | Coefficients | Estimate | Standard Error | p |
---|---|---|---|---|
Park meadows | Intercept | 4.404 | 0.029 | <0.001 |
Dog walking (yes) | −0.081 | 0.045 | 0.07 | |
Biodiversity level (Medium) | −0.001 | 0.040 | 0.98 | |
Biodiversity level (High) | 0.734 | 0.040 | <0.001 | |
Wastelands | Intercept | 4.051 | 0.053 | <0.001 |
Dog walking (yes) | −0.289 | 0.084 | <0.001 | |
Biodiversity level (Medium) | 0.012 | 0.073 | 0.87 | |
Biodiversity level (High) | 0.419 | 0.073 | <0.001 | |
Streetscapes | Intercept | 3.969 | 0.050 | <0.001 |
Dog walking (yes) | −0.101 | 0.068 | 0.13 | |
Biodiversity level (Medium) | −0.105 | 0.070 | 0.13 | |
Biodiversity level (High) | 0.062 | 0.070 | 0.38 | |
Biodiversity level (No vegetation) | −2.154 | 0.070 | <0.001 | |
Forests | Intercept | 4.885 | 0.047 | <0.001 |
Dog walking (yes) | −0.098 | 0.071 | 0.17 | |
Biodiversity level (Medium) | 0.581 | 0.065 | <0.001 | |
Biodiversity level (High) | 0.068 | 0.065 | 0.29 |
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Fischer, L.K.; Kowarik, I. Dog Walkers’ Views of Urban Biodiversity across Five European Cities. Sustainability 2020, 12, 3507. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12093507
Fischer LK, Kowarik I. Dog Walkers’ Views of Urban Biodiversity across Five European Cities. Sustainability. 2020; 12(9):3507. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12093507
Chicago/Turabian StyleFischer, Leonie K., and Ingo Kowarik. 2020. "Dog Walkers’ Views of Urban Biodiversity across Five European Cities" Sustainability 12, no. 9: 3507. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12093507
APA StyleFischer, L. K., & Kowarik, I. (2020). Dog Walkers’ Views of Urban Biodiversity across Five European Cities. Sustainability, 12(9), 3507. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12093507