Human management of landscapes is a primary cause of global environmental change. In residential landscapes, homeowner yard management can affect ecological properties and processes locally and regionally. For example, turfgrass lawns are now one of the largest irrigated crops in the U.S., contributing to high water and fertilizer use. Social drivers, such as personal values or Homeowner Association (HOA) regulations, also impact individual yard management decisions. Integrating social and ecological dynamics of residential landscapes can be complicated, but important for understanding urban ecosystems. Building on social and natural science literature, we present a conceptual framework with a multi-scalar, interdisciplinary approach to understanding residential landscapes. The framework integrates feedbacks between ecological characteristics of residential landscapes, human social drivers and management decisions, legacy effects from past land use, and related ecosystem services.

As an example of the coupled socio-ecological approach to studying residential landscapes, we conducted a case study in Phoenix, AZ relating human cognitive factors to ecological characteristics. Specifically, we examined if personal priorities and cultural values of residents are linked to either landscaping preferences or management practices, such as maintaining mesic yards (high water-use grass lawns) or xeric yards (low water-use plantings with crushed rock). Our results indicate that values and personal priorities were often only minimally important in distinguishing between different landscape preferences or management regimes. The research suggests that individual values alone cannot explain ecological structure of residential landscapes. Instead, perhaps regional or institutional factors, such as legacies of former homeowner decisions or HOA regulations, may be more important drivers of landscaping practices. This case study supports our integrated, multi-scalar conceptual framework by demonstrating the need to examine multiple scales of drivers to better understand ecological properties and processes occurring in residential yards.