Katherine N. Irvine

Psychological benefits of greenspace increase with biodiversity.

The worlds human population is becoming concentrated into cities, giving rise to concerns that it is becoming increasingly isolated from nature. Urban public greenspaces form the arena of many peoples daily contact with nature and such contact has measurable physical and psychological benefits. Here we show that these psychological benefits increase with the species richness of urban greenspaces. Moreover, we demonstrate that greenspace users can more or less accurately perceive species richness depending on the taxonomic group in question. These results indicate that successful management of urban greenspaces should emphasize biological complexity to enhance human well-being in addition to biodiversity conservation.

What are the Benefits of Interacting with Nature

There is mounting empirical evidence that interacting with nature delivers measurable benefits to people. Reviews of this topic have generally focused on a specific type of benefit, been limited to a single discipline, or covered the benefits delivered from a particular type of interaction. Here we construct novel typologies of the settings, interactions and potential benefits of people-nature experiences, and use these to organise an assessment of the benefits of interacting with nature. We discover that evidence for the benefits of interacting with nature is geographically biased towards high latitudes and Western societies, potentially contributing to a focus on certain types of settings and benefits. Social scientists have been the most active researchers in this field. Contributions from ecologists are few in number, perhaps hindering the identification of key ecological features of the natural environment that deliver human benefits. Although many types of benefits have been studied, benefits to physical health, cognitive performance and psychological well-being have received much more attention than the social or spiritual benefits of interacting with nature, despite the potential for important consequences arising from the latter. The evidence for most benefits is correlational, and although there are several experimental studies, little as yet is known about the mechanisms that are important for delivering these benefits. For example, we do not know which characteristics of natural settings (e.g., biodiversity, level of disturbance, proximity, accessibility) are most important for triggering a beneficial interaction, and how these characteristics vary in importance among cultures, geographic regions and socio-economic groups. These are key directions for future research if we are to design landscapes that promote high quality interactions between people and nature in a rapidly urbanising world.

Biodiversity and the Feel-Good Factor: Understanding Associations between Self-Reported Human Well-Being and Species Richness

Over half of the worlds human population lives in cities, and for many, urban greenspaces are the only places where they encounter biodiversity. This is of particular concern because there is growing evidence that human well-being is enhanced by exposure to nature. However, the specific qualities of greenspaces that offer the greatest benefits remain poorly understood. One possibility is that humans respond positively to increased levels of biodiversity. Here, we demonstrate the lack of a consistent relationship between actual plant, butterfly, and bird species richness and the psychological well-being of urban greenspace visitors. Instead, well-being shows a positive relationship with the richness that the greenspace users perceived to be present. One plausible explanation for this discrepancy, which we investigate, is that people generally have poor biodiversity-identification skills. The apparent importance of perceived species richness and the mismatch between reality and perception pose a serious challenge for aligning conservation and human well-being agendas.

Green space, soundscape and urban sustainability: an interdisciplinary, empirical study

This paper addresses two typically separate issues contributing to urban quality of life: increasing noise levels and declining quality of public green space. Drawing from environmental psychology, ecology and acoustical methods, this interdisciplinary research studied the soundscapes of three green spaces in a UK city through interviews with 70 park users, the measurement of habitat and recording of sound levels. The data reveal a prevalence of mechanical sounds and a hierarchy of preference for natural over people and mechanical sounds. There was a link between sound levels, both objective and perceived, and the type of sounds heard. The presence of these sounds varied across sites in part due to the ecological qualities of the place, specifically the presence of birds and shrub vegetation. The results suggest that peoples opportunity to access quiet, natural places in urban areas can be enhanced by improving the ecological quality of urban green spaces through targeted planning and design.

A systematic review of the health and well-being benefits of biodiverse environments.

Recent ecosystem service models have placed biodiversity as a central factor in the processes that link the natural environment to health. While it is recognized that disturbed ecosystems might negatively affect human well-being, it is not clear whether biodiversity is related to or can promote “good” human health and well-being. The aim of this study was to systematically identify, summarize, and synthesize research that had examined whether biodiverse environments are health promoting. The objectives were twofold: (1) to map the interdisciplinary field of enquiry and (2) to assess whether current evidence enables us to characterize the relationship. Due to the heterogeneity of available evidence a narrative synthesis approach was used, which is textual rather than statistical. Extensive searches identified 17 papers that met the inclusion criteria: 15 quantitative and 2 qualitative. The evidence was varied in disciplinary origin, with authors approaching the question using different study designs and methods, and conceptualizations of biodiversity, health, and well-being. There is some evidence to suggest that biodiverse natural environments promote better health through exposure to pleasant environments or the encouragement of health-promoting behaviors. There was also evidence of inverse relationships, particularly at a larger scale (global analyses). However, overall the evidence is inconclusive and fails to identify a specific role for biodiversity in the promotion of better health. High-quality interdisciplinary research is needed to produce a more reliable evidence base. Of particular importance is identifying the specific ecosystem services, goods, and processes through which biodiversity may generate good health and well-being.

Walking for Well-Being: Are Group Walks in Certain Types of Natural Environments Better for Well-Being than Group Walks in Urban Environments?

The benefits of walking in natural environments for well-being are increasingly understood. However, less well known are the impacts different types of natural environments have on psychological and emotional well-being. This cross-sectional study investigated whether group walks in specific types of natural environments were associated with greater psychological and emotional well-being compared to group walks in urban environments. Individuals who frequently attended a walking group once a week or more (n = 708) were surveyed on mental well-being (Warwick Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale), depression (Major Depressive Inventory), perceived stress (Perceived Stress Scale) and emotional well-being (Positive and Negative Affect Schedule). Compared to group walks in urban environments, group walks in farmland were significantly associated with less perceived stress and negative affect, and greater mental well-being. Group walks in green corridors were significantly associated with less perceived stress and negative affect. There were no significant differences between the effect of any environment types on depression or positive affect. Outdoor walking group programs could be endorsed through “green prescriptions” to improve psychological and emotional well-being, as well as physical activity.

Promoting behaviour change through personalized energy feedback in offices

A body of research suggests that the provision of energy feedback information to building users can elicit significant energy reductions through behaviour change. However, most studies have focused on energy use in homes and the assessment of interventions and technologies, to the neglect of the non-domestic context and broader issues arising from the introduction of feedback technologies. To address this gap, a non-domestic case study explores the delivery of personalized energy feedback to office workers through a novel system utilizing wireless technologies. The research demonstrates advantages of monitoring occupancy and quantifying energy use from specific behaviours as a basis for effective energy feedback; this is particularly important where there are highly disaggregated forms of energy use and a range of locations for that activity to take place. Quantitative and qualitative data show that personalized feedback can help individuals identify energy reduction opportunities. However, the analysis also highlights important contextual barriers and issues that need to be addressed when utilizing feedback technologies in the workplace. If neglected, these issues may limit the effective take-up of feedback interventions.

Ecological and Psychological Value of Urban Green Space

In urban environments, perhaps more so than in any other setting, people and nature must coexist in close, and sometimes uncomfortable, proximity. With half of the world’s human population living in cities and a continued decline of biodiversity in the wider landscape, urban nature plays an increasingly important role in creating cities that are both ecologically and socially sustainable. However, understanding the value of urban green spaces as a resource requires an integration of several, rarely overlapping, approaches to evaluating and managing these places.

Urban Ecology: Interactions between people and nature in urban environments

Since the dawn of human civilisation, people have interacted with nature, most notably to harness the resources that have fuelled the human enterprise (Vitousek et al . 1997). The sheer rate and scale of human appropriation of natural resources has precipitated a biodiversity crisis currently being manifested in rapid rates of species extinctions, extensive transformation of the structure and function of ecosystems, and rapid alterations to the Earths climate (Vitousek et al . 1986; Pimm & Raven 2000). The biodiversity crisis is a result of human activity, so the solutions to it will depend largely on human actions, on understanding and enhancing the way that we all interact with nature (Collins et al . 2000; Ehrlich 2002). Because most people on the planet live in towns and cities, the majority of our daily interactions with nature take place in urban environments, and this has led to a recent upsurge of interest in the dynamics of these relationships (Bradshaw & Bekoff 2000; Miller & Hobbs 2002; Pyle 2003; Saunders et al . 2006). Despite the manifest impoverishment of the natural environment in urban areas, or perhaps because of it, many urban dwellers seek out interaction with nature in some form, for example by visiting a local green space, or feeding backyard birds. Yet our understanding of these interactions is nascent, principally because their study requires work across several disciplinary boundaries (Alberti et al . 2003; Braun 2005). For example, ecologists often lack the interest or the tools to study people (Collins et al . 2000).

Quantifying Preferences for the Natural World Using Monetary and Nonmonetary Assessments of Value

Given that funds for biodiversity conservation are limited, there is a need to understand people’s preferences for its different components. To date, such preferences have largely been measured in monetary terms. However, how people value biodiversity may differ from economic theory, and there is little consensus over whether monetary metrics are always appropriate or the degree to which other methods offer alternative and complementary perspectives on value. We used a choice experiment to compare monetary amounts recreational visitors to urban green spaces were willing to pay for biodiversity enhancement (increases in species richness for birds, plants, and aquatic macroinvertebrates) with self-reported psychological gains in well-being derived from visiting the same sites. Willingness-to-pay (WTP) estimates were significant and positive, and respondents reported high gains in well-being across 3 axes derived from environmental psychology theories (reflection, attachment, continuity with past). The 2 metrics were broadly congruent. Participants with above-median self-reported well-being scores were willing to pay significantly higher amounts for enhancing species richness than those with below-median scores, regardless of taxon. The socio-economic and demographic background of participants played little role in determining either their well-being or the probability of choosing a paying option within the choice experiment. Site-level environmental characteristics were only somewhat related to WTP, but showed strong associations with self-reported well-being. Both approaches are likely to reflect a combination of the environmental properties of a site and unobserved individual preference heterogeneity for the natural world. Our results suggest that either metric will deliver mutually consistent results in an assessment of environmental preferences, although which approach is preferable depends on why one wishes to measure values for the natural world.