A justification for continued management of turfgrass during economic contraction

Abstract

A novel coronavirus, termed COVID-19, spread worldwide and become a global pandemic in 2020. Forecasts show that COVID-19 will cause substantial economic contraction affecting almost every industry. Managed turfgrass, particularly in urban settings, has many positive societal and environmental benefits. In a contracted economy, will resources be available to manage turfgrass to achieve these benefits? In this paper, we outline the benefits of managed turfgrass on golf courses, playing fields, recreational parks, and urban landscapes to assist decision makers with resource allocation in the COVID-19 era. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.

Conceptualizing Interactions between SDGs and Urban Sustainability Transformations in Covid-19 Times

“…The pandemic furthermore demonstrates the important role of urban green spaces, for example, and their potential to trigger the resilience people need to bounce back to its threats and to contribute to a higher quality of life. Venter et al (2020) have shown for Oslo that the recreational use of green space in residential areas, city parks and peri-urban areas has increased. Kleinschroth and Kowarik (2020) argue that further development of urban green infrastructure should be an integral part of key changes in response to the experience of the current crisis.…”

“…While several articles have been published on how Covid-19 possibly affects the way in which cities are organized (Megahed & Ghoneim, 2020;Sharifi & Khavarian-Garmsir, 2020;Venter, Barton, Gundersen, Figari, & Nowell, 2020) and why cities are a catalyst for the rapid spread of diseases such as Covid-19 (Neiderud, 2015), the impact of Covid-19 on the urban implementation of SDGs remains fuzzy. This is reflected, for example, in the UNESCO argumentation that the severe impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on cities raises fundamental questions about sustainable urban development, and indicates the need to rethink development strategies towards more resource efficiency, quality of life and resilience (UNESCO, 2020).…”

Modeling seasonal emergence of Poa annua in urban greenspace

“…Established sustainability goals set forth by the United Nations and the United States center upon mitigating increases in global temperature and protecting biodiversity to conserve ecosystem services 1 , 2 . Turfgrasses are perennial components of urban greenspaces found in parks, recreational areas, golf courses, sports fields, and lawns that confer a multitude of environmental and societal benefits from atmospheric enhancement to improved mental and physical well-being that have been reviewed in the literature 3 . Poa annua (annual bluegrass) is the most troublesome weed of managed turfgrass in urban greenspaces 4 .…”

Estimating economic minimums of mowing, fertilizing, and irrigating turfgrass

“…Many owners of turfgrass operations do not fully understand the agronomics of turfgrass management and therefore are unable to effectively evaluate the economic efficiency of the resources used. In our previous letter (Brosnan et al, 2020), we argued for the essentiality of turfgrass management to maintain a set of important societal and ecological benefits during a public health crisis. Here, we estimate economic minimums required for mowing, fertilizing, and irrigating turfgrasses across the United States to ensure those benefits.…”