The use of ecoregional data by green industry professionals in Oregon

Background/Question/Methods

Green Industry professionals include practitioners in landscape architecture, landscape construction, property management, and civic planning.  They directly or indirectly influence the provisioning of ecosystem services and the maintenance of ecosystem function for a significant amount of the public and private landscape.  Despite the important role they play in ecosystem management, the extent to which these professionals incorporate ecological principals and concepts into their work and decision making is far from clear. 

Ecoregional classification is one concept that could be a potentially useful tool for helping green industry professionals improve the design and management of created ecosystems.  In this study, we report the results of a pilot on-line survey of 162 Oregon green industry professionals.  Our survey targeted participants associated with a statewide professional organization and firms advertising landscape planning and design services.  All responses were voluntary. The survey assessed the degree to which respondents are knowledgeable about ecoregional classification systems within the state, the degree to which they incorporate ecoregional data in their work, the confidence they have in the usefulness and applicability of those data, and their current and preferred method for accessing ecoregional data.

Results/Conclusions

The majority of survey respondents were not aware of ecoregional classification and do not incorporate ecoregional data in their planning, design, or construction projects.  Even those respondents that did indicate some familiarity with ecoregional classification reported using only two of the eight major classification systems available in Oregon and making use of only a small subset of the available information, predominantly climatic data such as precipitation rates and temperature regimes. However, respondents did indicate a high degree of confidence in the reliability and applicability of the information they did use.   Respondents identified the internet, university extension programs, and continuing education as preferred methods of accessing information.  These early results suggest that green industry professionals are potentially broadly receptive to incorporating ecoregional information in their designs and management, but they need a better understanding of the concept and of the available information.  This suggests a need for ecological education strategies that more directly target green industry professionals.  A component of this strategy could include the development of a web-based system for aggregating, accessing, and presenting ecoregional information in ways that are directly pertinent to specific green industry needs.