Chinese Residents’ Perceived Ecosystem Services and Disservices Impacts Behavioral Intention for Urban Community Garden: An Extension of the Theory of Planned Behavior

Can Wu,Xiaoying Yu,Xiaoma Li,Feipeng Sheng,Shenglan Wu,Yulin Peng,Dexin Gan,Di Shu,Yuqing Tian,Ziniu Deng

doi:10.3390/agronomy12010193

Abstract

Urban community gardens (UCGs), greenspace cultivated and managed for vegetables by local communities, provide substantial ecosystem services (ES) and are warmly welcomed by residents. However, they also have many ecosystem disservices (EDS) and are almost always refused by the decision-makers of the government, especially in China. Better understanding the residents’ perceived ES and EDS and the impact on the behavioral intention (BI) toward UCGs is of great value to solve the conflicts between residents and the government concerning UCGs and to develop sustainable UCGs. Following the theory of planned behavior (TPB), we measured perceived ES/EDS, attitudes (ATT), perceived behavioral control (PBC), subjective norm (SN), and BI of 1142 residents in Changsha, China, and investigated their direct and indirect causal relationships using structural equation modeling (SEM). The results showed that: (1) ATT, PBC, and SN significantly and positively impact the BI of UCGs and together explained 54% of the variation of BI. (2) The extended TPB model with additional components of perceived ED/EDS improved the explanatory ability of the model, explaining 65% of the variance of BI. Perceived ES and perceived EDS showed significant direct positive and negative impacts on UCGs, respectively. They also indirectly impacted BI by influencing ATT, PBC, and SN. The findings of this study can extend our understanding of residents’ attitudes, behavior, and driving mechanism toward UCGs, and can help decision makers to design better policies for UCG planning and management.

Highlights

Introduction conditions of the Creative CommonsAccording to the American Community Garden Association (ACGA), an urban community garden (UCG) is any piece of land managed and cultivated by local communities to grow vegetables or flowers [1,2]
Residents’ behavioral intention to participate in the UCG, which was measured by using a five-point scale, had a moderately high score (M = 2.881, SD = 1.451) In addition, means of 4.048 (SD = 1.403) for the perceived ecosystem services indicated that the participants had a high level of evaluation with the UCG ecosystem services
structural equation modeling (SEM) to incorporate ecosystem services and disservices into the theory of planned behavior (TPB) model to explore the the relationship between perceived ecosystem services by ordinary urban residents and relationship between perceived ecosystem services by ordinary urban residents and comcommunity gardening behavioral intentions. It added novel evidence for cognition of munity gardening behavioral intentions. It added novel evidence for cognition of the eco-the ecosystem services associated adopted an integrated view to jointly incorposystem services associated withwith andand adopted an integrated view to jointly incorporate abilities to provide ecosystem services and deliver ecosystem disservices rate UCGs’ abilities to provide ecosystem services and deliver ecosystem disservicesinto intoan extended theoretical framework based on Overall, this study provides a better an extended theoretical framework based on TPB theory

Summary

Introduction

Introduction conditions of the Creative CommonsAccording to the American Community Garden Association (ACGA), an urban community garden (UCG) is any piece of land managed and cultivated by local communities to grow vegetables or flowers [1,2]. Built environment and the green infrastructure, the public and the private, and the planned and the unplanned [3]. They are productive landscapes where people and place, mind and body, social and physical, and past and present intermingle [4]. UCGs offer many ecosystem services (ES) [5] such as the provision of food and medicinal plants [6], local climate regulation [7], biodiversity [8], habitat for species [9], the facilitation of active and healthy lifestyles [10], neighborhood relationships [11], opportunities for relaxation and recreation [12], increased social cohesion [13], and environmental education [14]. To our knowledge, few studies investigate whether these services and impairments affect personal and social cognitive factors such as perception and attitudes, which affect their behavioral intentions or practices

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Conclusion