March 2019 - Parks & Recreation - 74

OPERATIONS
Caring for Heavily Used Landscapes
By Sonia Myrick

measure of success for park and recreation professionals is
in getting more and more people outside, enjoying the benefits of parks. And, whether that is walking or jogging on
a trail, attending an event in a park or simply lounging on
a bench or lawn, more and more people are venturing outdoors to do
some nature bathing.
enjoy a pick-up game of frisbee
golf or to lounge on the grass.
Most parks don't endure the level of wear and tear on the Mall.
However, as more and more parks
rely on large-scale events, such
as music festivals, fairs and other
community events to generate income, managing the impact these
events can have on the landscape
is critical to its sustainability. The
impact of heavy use may have
many forms and a variety of effects on the landscape. However, one of the most significant
impacts is soil compaction on
lawns. Healthy soil that is well-

PHOTOS BY STEVE TULLEY/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

With this increase in outdoor use
comes an increase in the impact
that use can have on the landscape.
Up until a few years ago, one had
to look no further than the nation's
" front yard " - the National Mall
in Washington, D.C. - to see the
impact long-term high use can
have on a site. The Mall, which is
traipsed on by roughly 30,000 people a day, underwent a major overhaul starting in 2015 to remediate
the damage done to the turf. Fencing was installed around many of
the grass squares to protect them
from foot traffic, much to the dismay of those who just wanted to

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drained, properly aerated and has
balanced nutrients and a healthy
soil biology can support healthy
grass, plants and trees. Heavily
used landscapes are damaged in
many ways; for example, visitors
snapping limbs off trees or picking flowers from or trampling on
young seedlings in a garden bed.
Compaction on lawns is one of
the major impacts of heavy usage
and one of the hardest to address.
When that soil becomes compacted because of heavy use and/or
nutritionally imbalanced, it can no
longer support healthy growth or
recover from repeated heavy use.
Wear and tear is inevitable however, so according to Ronnit Bendavid-Val, director of gardens and
grounds at the Brooklyn Botanic
Garden (BBG), " A more realistic goal is to reduce its impact. "
In " Managing 'Wear and Tear' in
Heavy-use Landscapes, " (http://ti
nyurl.com/yyoajzaf) published by
the Ecological Landscape Alliance,
Bendavid-Val divides the contributors to wear and tear into two categories: physical impacts that have a
direct physical effect on the landscape and come from outside the
institution, organization or agency that manages the park/garden,
and organizational practices rooted
within the institution, organization
or agency. She provides some examples of these contributors:
" Physical Impacts:
* High number of daily visitors or
event attendance (expressed primarily as foot traffic, with some
additional impacts)
* Specific human interaction with

March 2019 - Parks & Recreation

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