Can a golf course support biodiversity and ecosystem services? The landscape context matter

Abstract

In the last 30 years, the number of golf courses has increased dramatically worldwide. Since no other sport occupies and manages such large areas of green space, landscape context is crucial for determining their impacts or benefits. (1) Examine how they affect the main landscape socio-environmental landscape components; (2) analyze the knowledge network structure characterizing the research focused on golf courses; (3) discuss the most common best management practices to mitigate their environmental impacts; and (4) suggest new research perspectives. This paper has reviewed 239 papers from academic library databases through a literature review and co-word network analysis. Golf courses have impacted negatively on water and soil components, while positively on biodiversity, ecosystem services, and tourism, mainly in urban contexts. The best management practices have focused on soil, biodiversity and ecosystem services, water quality and quantity, and have given specific indications for amphibians, birds, turtles, and bee species. Few articles have considered the landscape perspective, despite the potential impact on natural or semi-natural landscapes. New clusters of research and management issues, in order to link biodiversity conservation with landscape perspective, have emerged: the need to increase (1) studies focused on the effects of golf courses on the ecological processes behind the functioning of the landscape, taking into account its composition and spatial configuration; (2) the proportion of native vegetation in the landscape composition, and density and complexity of vegetation in the landscape configuration.