1st Edition
Contemporary Landscape Performance Methods and Techniques Lessons from the Houston Arboretum and Nature Center
This book defines, illustrates, applies, and explores current and future tools and methods for measuring landscape performance using the Houston Arboretum and Nature Center (HANC) as a case site, providing the most extensive, comprehensive description and application of existing landscape performance tools in the current literature to date.
Landscape performance is a measure of the effectiveness with which landscape solutions fulfil their intended purpose and contribute to sustainability. The design of the HANC is a prime case for measuring landscape performance as the site has undergone a pervasive transformation of its 65-acre core as an initial phase of improvements. The massive six-year effort has reconfigured arrival, circulation, and parking, developed new educational facilities, constructed a network of walks and trails, and established sustainable ecologies of prairie, savannah, riparian woods, and upland woods across the northern half of its property. This book uses landscape performance as an integral method of not only blending science into the design process but using scientific outputs as the rationale for design-decision making. Through this, the book showcases a multitude of proven quantitative and qualitative evaluation methods which can be applied to other designs and plans, calculating their specific impacts on the HANC, and guiding readers through how to use each tool through an applied process. This book provides a comprehensive set of tools and approaches to measuring landscape performance that could be used as a guide for other projects to replicate or expand upon.
The book helps move the design professions beyond simple stereotypes of simple beauty of form, showcasing and describing how the design professions (primarily landscape architecture) are an extremely scientific and evidence-based industry.
List of figures
List of tables
List of contributors
Foreword by Barbara Deutsch
Preface by Galen Newman, Rui Zhu, Megan Barnes, and Dongying Li
Chapter 1. Defining and Explaining Landscape Performance
Megan Barnes, Rui Zhu, Galen Newman, and Zhihan Tao
Chapter 2. Landscape Performance Tools and Calculators: An Overview
Rui Zhu, Galen Newman, and Megan Barnes
Chapter 3. Houston Arboretum and Nature Center (HANC): Design, Implementation, and Issues
Conners Ladner, Beau Burris, Debbie Markey, Joseph James, Allyson Mendenhall, Galen Newman, Rui Zhu and Dongying Li
1. Environmental Benefits
Chapter 4. Environmental Benefits: Investigating Urban Heat Mitigation Through In-Situ Microclimate Measurements
Xiaoyu Li, Jiang Zheng, Jingxi Peng, Yue Zhang, Dongying Li and Galen Newman
Chapter 5. Environmental Benefits: Assessing Stormwater Runoff Contamination with Comparison Sampling
Zhihan Tao and Galen Newman
Chapter 6. Environmental Benefits: Assessing Annual Pollutant Load Using the L-THIA Model
Rui Zhu, Sara Prybutok, Zhenhang Cai, and Galen Newman
Chapter 7. Environmental Benefits: Methodological Overview for eBird, iNaturalist, GAP Data, and Wildlife Richness
Rui Zhu and Galen Newman
Chapter 8. Environmental Benefits: Evaluating Species Richness for Birds Using eBird and GAP Data
Rui Zhu and Galen Newman
Chapter 9. Environmental Benefits: Evaluating Species Richness for Mammals Using iNaturalist and GAP Data
Rui Zhu and Galen Newman
Chapter 10. Environmental Benefits: Evaluating Species Richness for Insects Using iNaturalist and GAP Data
Rui Zhu and Galen Newman
Chapter 11. Environmental Benefits: Evaluating Flora Species Richness Using Biodiversity Indexes
Rui Zhu and Galen Newman
Chapter 12. Environmental Benefits: Assessing Habitat Quality and Pollinator Benefits
Rui Zhu, Jiang Zheng, and Galen Newman
Chapter 13. Environmental Benefits: Assessing Material Reuse from Construction Documents
Rui Zhu, Zhihan Tao, and Galen Newman
2. Social Benefits
Chapter 14. Social Benefits: Assessing Accessibility Impact Using Census Data
Rui Zhu, Galen Newman, and Dongying Li
Chapter 15. Social Benefits: Spatiotemporal Visitor Characterization through SafeGraph Data Analysis
Xiaoyu Li, Yue Zhang, Dongying Li, Heng Cai and Hao Tian
Chapter 16. Social Benefits: Analyzing Visitor Motivations and Benefits Based on Retrospective and On-Site Surveys
Yue Zhang, Xiaoyu Li, Jingxi Peng, and Dongying Li
Chapter 17. Social Benefits: Modeling Visitor Thermal Comfort in Various Park Zones with Heat Budget Calculations
Xiaoyu Li, Jingxi Peng, Yue Zhang, and Dongying Li
Chapter 18. Social Benefits: Capturing Real-Time Mental Health Conditions using Geographically Explicit Ecological Momentary Assessment
Dongying Li, Yue Zhang, Xiaoyu Li, and Jingxi Peng
3. Economic Benefits
Chapter 19. Economic Benefits: Assessing Property Tax Revenue through a Pre-Post Evaluation
Rui Zhu, Zhenhang Cai, and Galen Newman
Chapter 20. Economic Benefits: Assessing Property Value through a Pre-Post Evaluation
Rui Zhu, Zhihan Tao, and Galen Newman
Chapter 21. Economic Benefits: Evaluating Revenue Impacts with Financial Reports
Rui Zhu, Zhihan Tao, and Galen Newman
Chapter 22. Economic Benefits: Analyzing Seeding and Water Savings Across Scenarios
Rui Zhu and Galen Newman
4. The Future of Landscape Performance
Chapter 23. Moving Forward: Future Needs and Directions for Landscape Performance
Galen Newman, Rui Zhu, Megan Barnes, Dongying Li, and Zhihan Tao
Index
Biography
Galen Newman is Professor and Department Head in the Department of Landscape Architecture and Urban Planning at Texas A&M University, United States. His research interests include community resilience, urban regeneration, landscape performance, and advanced land use science and analytics.
Rui Zhu is a post-doctoral researcher in the Department of Landscape Architecture and Urban Planning at Texas A&M University, United States. Her research revolves around the intersections of community resilience, urban regeneration, urban analytics, landscape performance, and land use science.
Dongying Li is an Associate Professor in the Department of Landscape Architecture and Urban Planning at Texas A&M University, United States. Her primary area of research elucidates the relationship between human exposure to green infrastructure and mental health. She also focuses on identifying the environmental enablers and barriers to health equity.
Megan Barnes is Senior Program Manager for Research at the Landscape Architecture Foundation, United States. She manages LAF's Case Study Investigation (CSI) program and Landscape Performance Series initiatives. She has a diverse background in landscape architecture, international development, and nonprofit work and specializes in the quantification of benefits of exemplary landscapes.
