Understanding public preferences for urban wildflower meadows

Accelerating urbanisation challenges biodiversity and human wellbeing, demanding effective urban nature-based solutions. Urban wildflower meadows are increasingly popular interventions that may offer biodiversity and wellbeing benefits. However, realising their potential depends on public support, which requires robust evidence on which meadow design attributes the public prefers and values most. We conducted a choice experiment with urban greenspace users across three UK cities to quantify willingness-to-pay (WTP) for some of the key characteristics of wildflower meadows in public parks, namely flower colour diversity, native species composition, plant species richness, and pollinator habitat quality. Respondents generally preferred wildflower meadow options over the status quo of mown amenity grass and were willing to pay for improvements to meadow attributes through increased local taxation. Respondents had positive WTP for more colourful, pollinator-friendly meadows with more native species, but not for additional plant species. Preferences were largely consistent across respondents interviewed at different meadow types (annual, perennial, or control sites), suggesting that enhanced attribute salience from direct exposure to existing meadows had minimal influence on stated preferences. Methodologically, this suggests that in situ surveys of preferences for urban greenspace are broadly robust to salience effects and can inform management beyond the surveyed sites. Attributes that offer positive outcomes for biodiversity, such as supporting pollinators and including native species, were aligned with, rather than conflicting with, public preferences. Urban greenspace managers can enhance public support while achieving ecological objectives by designing meadows with moderate colour diversity, high native species content, and demonstrable pollinator benefits.