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Preferences for urban greenspace functions during public health pandemics. Empirical evidence from Malawi
Urbanization Sustainability and Society
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of Corona virus disease on the perceived values of urban green landscapes in a developing country setting. To achieve this objective, the author investigated changes in the preferences for urban green space services among city residents who use nature areas for recreation.
Design/methodology/approach
This study applied the best–worst scaling technique to elicit changes in the preferences for ecosystem services from urban recreational sites in Malawi. The study also used a fractional logit model to examine factors that motivate visitors’ willingness to donate/contribute to improve the quality of nature’s recreational services.
Findings
This study finds that the COVID-19 pandemic changed visitors’ perceptions of urban woodlands, but leisure/recreation remained the most important service with or without the Corona virus outbreak. However, the perceived value of air pollution control and cultural/religious functions gained more prominence (+3%), whereas biodiversity conservation became less prominent (−2%) during the pandemic period. The mean willingness to pay (WTP) was estimated to be US$28.73, and WTP is positively influenced by education, income status and the user’s satisfaction with the recreation site.
Originality/value
The study substantiated the impact of Corona virus disease on the perceived values of urban green landscapes, using Malawi as a case study. This was demonstrated through the changes in preferences for urban green space services among city residents who use nature areas for recreation.
... Moreover, the pandemic has underscored the importance of these parks as safe and healthful retreats, thereby influencing user preferences for park landscapes and structures. Research shows that the pandemic has influenced visitors' perceptions of urban woodlands, with leisure and recreation remaining the most important service in urban greenspaces [9,10]. Moreover, this study reveals a shift in motivations for visiting urban green spaces. ...
Urban parks enhance residents’ quality of life and health by fostering a harmonious relationship between people and nature, so effective park design needs to prioritize ecological protection, sustainable landscapes, and practical spatial structures to achieve these benefits. This study takes the typical case of urban park renovation and reconstruction—Kowloon Walled City Park—as an example to conduct research and divides the interior of the park into four types of areas: contemporary built-up area; historical relic area; natural–folk custom area; and ecological conservation area. Based on 405 valid questionnaire data for respondents, this study conducts empirical research using a combination of the Semantic Differential (SD) method, Importance Performance Analysis (IPA) model, and unordered multivariate logit choice model, comprehensively describes and analyzes individual spatial perception and preferences, and further discusses the potential factors affecting individual perception preferences. The results show that there are differences in many characteristics between different areas in Kowloon Walled City Park. At the same time, people generally prefer park areas that integrate modern and traditional elements, natural and cultural environments, and pay attention to the balance between naturalness and sociality in park design. These results provide useful information for planners, developers, and others, as well as data for designing urban park construction with higher practical value and natural benefits.
This research explores the intersection of wildlife tourism and digital narratives, focusing on Sulawesi's endemic species. Utilizing the Digital Content Reviews and Analysis framework, the study combines content analysis, sentiment classification, and toxicity assessment to uncover critical insights. The findings highlight digital narratives' significant role in shaping public perceptions and behaviors toward conservation and ecotourism. Through systematic content analysis, themes such as biodiversity, conservation, and local community involvement emerged as effectively communicated, resonating with audiences and promoting sustainable tourism practices. The framework's structured approach enabled a thorough examination of digital content's impact on wildlife tourism narratives, identifying critical patterns and themes. The study also employed advanced machine learning techniques, specifically the SVM algorithm enhanced by SMOTE, which achieved a sentiment classification accuracy of 88.76% ± 3.11% and an AUC of 0.977, demonstrating its effectiveness. However, toxicity assessment revealed that while most interactions were civil, specific posts contained significant levels of toxicity, with a peak score of 0.64912, underscoring the need for better moderation and engagement strategies. The research emphasizes integrating conservation-focused elements into digital narratives to foster positive engagement and support for wildlife preservation. The study provides practical recommendations for enhancing the positive influence of digital narratives on conservation and sustainable tourism, offering a foundation for future initiatives to optimize digital communication strategies in ecotourism.
Complex stimuli in urban environments often lead to cognitive fatigue in residents. As a result, there is a growing demand from residents for restorative environments. Previous research has shown that the pure natural environment in the wild can help people achieve cognitive restoration. However, little attention has been paid to cognitive restoration through exposure to green infrastructure. Based on Attention Restoration Theory (ART), this study conducted an eye-tracking experiment in a controlled laboratory environment to investigate the effects of two view types, green infrastructure and urban, on individuals’ cognitive restoration.
The results show that green infrastructure has a positive effect on the cognitive functioning of the participants in the experiment. The positive effect of green infrastructure on cognitive restoration is reflected in the restoration of directed attention. Less cognitive effort is an important factor contributing to cognitive restoration. Nature-relatedness plays a vital role in the eye movement behaviour of individuals when viewing landscape pictures and in the restorative benefits of cognition.
The COVID-19 pandemic has profoundly changed outdoor recreation. As a result of the pandemic, parks and protected areas around the world have witnessed dramatic increases in recreation visitation. While various studies have examined this premise, this is one of the first to examine the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic upon recreation visitation across an entire parks and protected areas system in New England, utilizing both spatial and temporal scales. Study findings provide empirical evidence to inform future research and theory related to the social-ecological systems and recreation opportunity spectrum frameworks. A unique combination of primary, secondary, and geospatial data was used to explore recreation visitors’ decision-making, behaviors, and visitation trends during the pandemic. Inferential and regression analyses suggest overall recreation visitation increased by ∼61% (2+ million additional site visits) during the summer of 2020 at the height of the pandemic. Moreover, significant changes in visitation, site, and geo-spatial characteristics were observed for both in-state and out-of-state visitors during the pandemic. This research validates the influence of the pandemic upon parks and protected areas in the United States.
This paper reports results from three studies concerning outdoor recreation participation and trends during the Covid-19 pandemic in Sweden. The studies, undertaken at national, regional and local levels, used surveys, interviews and PPGIS approaches, to build a solid knowledge base. Results are analyzed with particular attention given to management and policy implications based on the following observations: increased outdoor recreation participation, changes in lifestyle and routines, new visitor profiles and activity trends, spatial changes, visitor displacement, spatial redistribution, and indications of post-pandemic outdoor recreation behavior. The Swedish case is of special interest because of high accessibility to nature areas and few restrictions to recreate in nature due to the pandemic. Hence, this study could serve as a reference for other countries with more Covid-19 related restrictions and less accessible nature for recreation.
Outdoor recreation management perspectives were investigated based on the general perception of increased public outdoor recreation participation during the Covid-19 pandemic and supported by survey research at local, regional, and national levels in Sweden. There is an interest in how outdoor recreation professionals perceived outdoor recreation by the public during the pandemic and whether professionals could identify specific implications from the Covid-19/outdoor recreation experience. Climate adaptation literature supports the idea that current global challenge coupled with projections for ongoing challenge requires a pro-active approach; this turn to climate adaptation for potential consideration or guidance is based on characteristics that the Covid-19 pandemic shares with climate change. Outdoor recreational professionals' review of a recent public survey and subsequent semi-structured interviews with this group were conducted to obtain outdoor recreation professionals' detailed perceptions on survey outcomes. Results show that the professionals confirm a rapid and significant increase in outdoor recreation participation. Further, professionals identified critical trends in the increase of new or inexperienced outdoor recreation participants. A positive and proactive list of implications emerged as themes of the interviews. A review and synthesis of the themes support the national goals for outdoor recreation in Sweden. Further, results indicate a current opportunity for outdoor recreation to address concerns for diminishing nature experience and support connectedness to nature. The connectedness to nature outcome further strengthens the comparison with climate adaptation strategy given the potential relationship between connectedness to nature and pro-environmental behavior.
Out of nowhere the COVID-19 pandemic has turned people’s everyday lives upside down. Public places in urban areas were closed. However, leaving the house for recreational and leisure purposes in nature was still allowed in Germany – even during lockdown in March and April of 2020. As a result, urban forests have gained unprecedented importance – not only for recreational activities, but also for maintaining social contacts and coping with psychological stress. With these diverse requirements, many people have appropriated urban forests in new and changed ways. Using the example of the forests around the southern German city of Freiburg, a team of researchers from the Department of Societal Change at the Forest Research Institute Baden-Württemberg (FVA) carried out a mixed-method study to investigate how these appropriation practices are working and to shed some light on the relevance of forests for city residents in these circumstances. In addition to the statistical analysis of an online questionnaire, ethnographic observation data and Instagram posts were analyzed. This methodological triangulation was carried out in order to purposefully combine the strengths of each method while at the same time reducing the intrinsic biases and blind spots. This resulted in a better understanding of the importance of urban forest during this extraordinary period of time. Our results show that urban forests became critically important during the lockdown. Many visitors appropriated the forest with very different motives and for different purposes. For many visitors, the forest provided the same functions during this extraordinary period that public spaces otherwise do. The forest was not only consumed as a natural space, but also constructed by visitors as a social space. We can illustrate how this social meaning was both negotiated and reproduced. To provide an abstraction of our results, we refer to the theory of spatial appropriation as well as to new approaches in sociology of space that conceptualize space as a network of social relations. These results give rise to broader questions for future research projects, recreational forest research, forest and health, and forest planning.
Spending time in nature is one potential way to cope with the negative physical and psychological health impacts from major stressful life events. In 2020, a large fraction of the global population was impacted by restrictions to contain the spread of the COVID‐19 outbreak, a period characterised by marked health risks and behavioural changes. Here we explore whether people responded to this stressor by spending more time in nature and investigate the reasons for any changes.
We surveyed 1,002 people in Brisbane, Australia in 2020, to measure the change in use of green space during the restrictions period and benefits people associated with visiting them.
About 36% of participants increased their urban green space use, but 26% reduced it, indicating a great deal of flux. Furthermore, 45% of the previous non‐users of urban green space began using it for the first time during the restrictions period. Older people were less likely to increase their green space use and those with a backyard were more likely to increase their use of green spaces.
Participants' change in use occurred regardless of the amount of green space available in close proximity to their households. In addition, we did not find a relationship between nature‐relatedness and change in use.
People's reasons for green space use shifted during the pandemic‐related restrictions period, with many emphasising improvement of personal well‐being rather than consolidating community capital. Most participants indicated an increase in the importance of the psychological and physical benefits obtained from urban green spaces.
We conclude that increased urban green space use during moments of stress such as the COVID‐19 pandemic has the potential to ameliorate some of the negative effects of the stressor, but that the capacity and desire to spend more time in green space varies markedly across society. Sufficient urban green space provision for all sections of society will maximise the opportunity to employ a nature‐based coping mechanism during times of personal or community stress.
This paper assesses the value of urban green spaces, specifically peri-urban forests and their potential substitutes, for the local population on the basis of their residential choice. We applied a choice experiment that focuses on the trade-offs between private housing characteristics and the environmental aspects of neighborhoods. Individual willingness-to-pay is estimated from a latent class model and a mixed logit model along with a Willingness-To-Pay (WTP) space approach. Our results show that green spaces provide both direct use value (recreation) and indirect use value (scenic view). The respondent's value of distance to peri-urban forests depends on recreational use. The ownership of a private garden reduces the WTP for living closer to an urban park.
While technological progress has fostered the conception of an urban society that is increasingly decoupled from ecosystems, demands on natural capital and ecosystem services keep increasing steadily in our urbanized planet. Decoupling of cities from ecological systems can only occur locally and partially, thanks to the appropriation of vast areas of ecosystem services provision beyond the city boundaries. Conserving and restoring ecosystem services in urban areas can reduce the ecological footprints and the ecological debts of cities while enhancing resilience, health, and quality of life for their inhabitants. In this paper we synthesize knowledge and methods to classify and value ecosystem services for urban planning. First, we categorize important ecosystem services and disservices in urban areas. Second, we describe valuation languages (economic costs, socio‐cultural values, resilience) that capture distinct value dimensions of urban ecosystem services. Third, we identify analytical challenges for valuation to inform urban planning in the face of high heterogeneity and fragmentation characterizing urban ecosystems. The paper discusses various ways through which urban ecosystems services can enhance resilience and quality of life in cities and identifies a range of economic costs and socio‐cultural impacts that can derive from their loss. We conclude by identifying knowledge gaps and challenges for the research agenda on ecosystem services provided in urban areas.
Green space has been associated with a wide range of health benefits, including stress reduction, but much pertinent evidence has relied on self-reported health indicators or experiments in artificially controlled environmental conditions. Little research has been reported using ecologically valid objective measures with participants in their everyday, residential settings. This paper describes the results of an exploratory study (n = 25) to establish whether salivary cortisol can act as a biomarker for variation in stress levels which may be associated with varying levels of exposure to green spaces, and whether recruitment and adherence to the required, unsupervised, salivary cortisol sampling protocol within the domestic setting could be achieved in a highly deprived urban population. Self-reported measures of stress and general wellbeing were also captured, allowing exploration of relationships between cortisol, wellbeing and exposure to green space close to home. Results indicate significant relationships between self-reported stress (P < 0.01), diurnal patterns of cortisol secretion (P < 0.05), and quantity of green space in the living environment. Regression analysis indicates percentage of green space in the living environment is a significant (P < 0.05) and independent predictor of the circadian cortisol cycle, in addition to self-reported physical activity (P < 0.02). Results also show that compliance with the study protocol was good. We conclude that salivary cortisol measurement offers considerable potential for exploring relationships between wellbeing and green space and discuss how this ecologically valid methodology can be developed to confirm and extend findings in deprived city areas to illuminate why provision of green space close to home might enhance health.
This study estimated the monetary value of urban forests’ non-priced benefits to tourists. Data collected by a face-to-face self-administered survey of urban tourists in Savannah, Georgia, USA were used to estimate tourists’ willingness to pay (WTP) for urban forests by the contingent valuation method. Individual WTP was found higher among tourists with graduate school education. Results suggested that WTP for urban forests also increased significantly with income and destination loyalty of the tourists. Estimated mean and median WTP values were 7.34, 2.10 (95% confidence interval: 1.38, 2.82), respectively. Based on the estimated mean WTP, annual value of urban forests to tourists in Savanna in 2009 ranged from a minimum of 167 million with a 95% confidence interval. The annual value was 7.59 million, $15.51 million) based on the estimated median WTP and assuming at least 50% of the tourists in Savannah would pay the median amount. As the mean was greatly influenced by extreme WTP values in the data, the annual value based on the median value was a more conservative estimate.
Despite the widespread acceptance that loyalty is a major driving force in successful companies, tourism destination loyalty has not been investigated. This study explores the application and usefulness of destination loyalty. Based on the brand loyalty literature, a number of loyalty measurements are suggested. The application of two measurement approaches to primary data on lifelong travel patterns by New Zealand residents indicate their validity. Through the collection and analysis of data on tourists’ destination loyalty, destinations will be able to determine the composition of its customers with respect to their destination loyalty. It will also facilitate a better forecasting and demand estimation.
Landscapes can change over time as a consequence of economic demands and technological innovation in agriculture. This study assesses the preferences for and the value of different landscapes which could arise in the future in the Yorkshire Dales National Park. The landscapes assessed comprised images of a range of possible future agricultural landscapes: today's landscape; abandoned; semi-intensive agricultural; intensive agricultural; planned; conserved; sporting; and wild landscapes. A majority of both visitors to and residents of the Dales preferred today's landscapes, although the conserved landscape was also valued highly. A comparison of the costs of maintaining each landscape with their respective benefits indicates that more public expenditure should be devoted to protecting and enhancing environmental attributes such as dry stone walls and stone barns, wild flowers and hay meadows, and small broadleaved woodlands. Methodological tests on the contingent valuation technique underpinning this study suggests that the results are reliable and robust.
When people make donations to privately provided public goods, such as charity, there may be many factors influencing their decision other than altruism. Social pressure, guilt, sympathy, or simply a desire for a "warm glow" may all be important. This paper considers such impure altruism formally and develops a wide set of implications. In particular, this paper discusses the invariance proposition of public goods, solves for the sufficient conditions for neutrality to hold, examines the optimal tax treatment of charitable giving, and calibrates the model based on econometric studies in order to consider policy experiments. Impure altruism is shown to be more consistent with observed patterns of giving than the conventional pure altruism approach, and to have policy implications that may differ widely from those of the conventional models. Copyright 1990 by Royal Economic Society.
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The special issue presents international experiences with COVID-19 in the years 2020 and 2021 on outdoor recreation and nature-based tourism. To set the scene, a bibliometric and qualitative analysis illustrates and clusters recent publications on COVID-19. Against this background contributions from Japan, China, Brazil, Indonesia, Austria, Croatia, the United States, New Zealand, Taiwan, Australia, Sweden, Poland and Ireland draw a truly international picture of the pandemic crisis, the effects, coping behavior and related strategies. The papers contribute to the COVID-19 related research by documenting the shock in the field of outdoor recreation and tourism, by understanding the immediate consequences on behavior and the required managerial consequences and finally, by analyzing the possible follow up effects including long term effects, discussing resilient solutions and proposing new strategies. In the discussion section we try to answer the questions whether the high visitation rate in recreation facilities, forests, parks and protected areas will remain, and whether adapted visitor management concepts will be required. In addition, we discuss possible implications for urban planning and management. Finally, based on a changing connectedness to nature also possible positive effects by the pandemic are discussed which may lead to a new target group in outdoor recreation and nature-based tourism.
Management implications:
The overview on the Covid-19 related literature suggests improvements in planning and management, such as-new concepts for destination and visitor management, considering an ongoing risk-management,-proactive urban planning and management considering short-term effects in the existing built environment as well as a long-term perspective with strategically planned green infrastructure, including not only the supply of green infrastructure, but also its accessibility, its amenities, and aspects of environmental justice,-the consideration of new target groups in tourism and outdoor recreation.
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Although the popularity of protected areas for recreation has been increasing, short term changes in visitation occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic. To examine how volunteer geographic information data can be used to monitor such often rapid changes in visitation across multiple locations, data from online fitness platforms for mountain biking (Trailforks) and remote area hiking (Wikiloc) were analysed before (2019) and during (2020-2021) the COVID-19 pandemic for 40 protected areas in Queensland, Australia. Mountain biking was popular with a total of 93,311 routes on Trailforks, with 26,936 routes in 2019, increasing to 37,406 in 2020, and then decreasing to 28,969 in 2021. Approximately 66% of all the routes were from just three urban protected areas out of the 12 with route data. There were 4367 routes for remote area hiking on Wikiloc across 36 protected areas, which increased slightly from 1081 in 2019, to 1421 in 2020 and to 1865 in 2021. Across 18 factors, distance from urban areas and networks of mountain biking trails best predicted popularity for mountain biking based on Generalised Linear Models. In contrast, average slope and large networks of hiking trails best predicted hiking, with similar results for each year. The two sources of online data were correlated with trail counter data, although not consistently. The results highlight how external factors affect visitation, but also how the same types of protected areas remained popular, and that the impacts of COVID-19 pandemic on visitation in South-East Queensland protected areas was less dramatic than for other regions. This study further highlights how volunteered geographic information can be used to assess the popularity of protected areas, including in rapidly changing conditions.
Management implications:
Rapid changes in visitation can be challenging to monitor and manage, as occurred with the COVID-19 pandemic. The impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on mountain biking and hiking and factors predicting protected area popularity were examined across different parks. Visitation increased at different stages of the pandemic, with mountain bikers' preferring urban parks with networks of mountain bike trails while some hikers preferred more remote large parks. Managers can expand on traditional methods of visitor monitoring by using volunteered geographic information to monitor rapid and longer-term trends of visitation to protected areas.
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The COVID -19 pandemic posed serious challenge for securing public health worldwide. Public health preparedness and restrictions put in place impacted many aspects of human life, including recreational activities and access to outdoor recreational destinations. Green spaces have become one of the few sources of resilience during the coronavirus crisis due to their restorative effects on psychophysical health and community well-being. The aim of this study is to analyse the impact of the COVID -19 pandemic on forest visitation. The results are based upon long-term visitor data acquired via pyroelectric sensors (Eco-Counter) in three forest districts located in Poland (Browsk, Gdansk & Kozienice Forest Districts). The analysis covers the period between January 01, 2019 and December 31, 2020 and the results confirm changes in recreational use in the studied forest areas during the pandemic compared to the preceding year. However, observed changes in forest visitation vary by pandemic period and study area. The ban on access to forest areas significantly reduced the number of forest visits in all studied areas. The number of visits to sub-urban forests (Gdansk Forest District) and to remote nature-based tourist destinations (Browsk Forest District) increased in the later pandemic periods, especially in the summer months of 2020, while it remained the same in a popular nearby recreation area: Kozienice Forest District. There were only minor temporal shifts in the distribution of weekly and daily visits. The results are important for public health preparedness planning in crisis situations and for provisioning conditions supporting societal health and well-being. Objective data on forest visits are necessary for successful management of forest areas and surrounding amenities. More cross-sector collaboration and public participation would be desirable to create sustainable, resilient, and liveable spaces for the society.
Management implications:
•Long-term visitation monitoring is crucial for successful management of outdoor recreation destinations and their catchment areas.•Objective numbers concerning forest visitation from the pre-pandemic and COVID-19 pandemic period allow observing trends and making fact-based management decisions during period of crisis.•Changes in the investigated three forest study areas in Poland were not homogenous, which implies the necessity of systematic visitor monitoring in multiple destinations, in order to cover different types of forest areas and also local diversity in recreational use.•More intersectoral, interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary exchange would be desirable to better integrate existing on-site visitor monitoring data into decision making processes related to forest management, urban planning, transportation, tourism and public health.
Urban and peri-urban forests provide multiple ecosystem services for city dwellers, including water, opportunities for recreation and tourism, climate regulation and habitat provision. Despite growing scholarly attention to urban forests, few studies to date have conducted comprehensive assessments of their ecosystem services. This study conducts an interdisciplinary and wide-ranging assessment of ecosystem services of Oslomarka, the emblematic forest surrounding Oslo, Norway’s capital city. First, we set the historical background and examine drivers of change shaping forest uses and ecosystem service composition at the study area. Second, we identify, characterize and measure ecosystem services delivered at the study area. Third, we assess trends in these ecosystem services over the past 50 years. Three main findings are highlighted. First, institutional, technological, and cultural factors are the main drivers of change shaping current ecosystem service composition. Second, ten ecosystem services and three sub-services were assessed and characterized, with water and opportunities for recreation and tourism found to be of particular prominence to locals. Third, our results show that provisioning and habitat services have declined over the past fifty years, while carbon sequestration and storage has increased. Cultural services increased overall, while also experiencing major changes in their nature and composition. Our research reveals the fundamental importance of Oslo’s urban forests and its ecosystem services for the well-being of local inhabitants.
Peri-urban forests provide a range of important benefits to urban dwellers, such as, for example, nature-based recreation. This cultural ecosystem service is of significant importance in the developing world: It helps to increase urban resilience and stress recovery, which, in turn, can help mitigate many urban-life-related psychological and physical health issues, and socio-cultural problems caused by rapid urbanization and population growth. However, in developing countries such as, for example, Morocco, the heavy use of peri-urban forests for recreation and the limited management funds that do not keep up with the growing need for development and conservation result in anthropogenic pressures that lead to the degradation of these valuable natural sites. Non-market valuation of peri-urban forest recreation can help inform decision-making, conceive more effective management of these natural areas and increase funding for their conservation. This study estimates the recreational benefits of Val d’Ifrane, a broad peri-urban forest within Ifrane National Park in Morocco, to its domestic visitors, thereby filling a research gap in the non-market valuation of nature-based recreation in developing countries in general, and the geographic region of Morocco specifically. The study uses the individual single site Travel Cost Method with a correction for zero-truncation and endogenous stratification to estimate the recreational use-value of Val d’Ifrane. Results suggest an annual recreational value of 159.59 million DH (€ 14.71 million) or an average of 1,063.94 DH (€ 98.08) per visit per year (confidence intervals of 12.78 million DH (€ 1.17 million) to 306.40 million DH (€ 28.24 million) per annum, or 85.21 DH (€ 7.86) to 2,042.68 DH (€ 188.30) per visit per year). Robustness of the results is tested with regard to the operationalization of the travel cost and the opportunity cost of time, as well as the consideration of multi-site and multi-destination trips. The total annual recreational value is found to be 35 times higher than the cost for the last management and investment carried out by local environmental authorities in more than ten years. This information can assist decision-makers in their deliberations on funding for Val d’Ifrane restoration and development to maintain its recreational value while minimizing the negative impacts on natural capital and preserving the site for future generations.
This study aims to evaluate the economic value of urban forests that are used as daily leisure spaces in cities, focusing on the healing value for tourists associated with their public health and environmental functions. To this end, an onsite survey of residents was conducted in Seoul, Korea. In real-world scenarios, willingness-to-pay (WTP) is associated with building a preservation fund and in this case is US530 million, depending on whether the calculation is made using mean WTP or truncated WTP. The findings of this study suggest that urban residents determine the preservation value of urban forests according to how they feel about them. This is in terms of their restorative effect, their ability to absorb particulate matter, and the recreational satisfaction that they bring. The findings also imply that the healing functions of urban forests used mainly as leisure spaces for health promotion reasons are directly reflected in their preservation value. On the other hand, the fact that policies related to the new environmental paradigm (NEP) were found to be insignificant in all three scenarios suggests that it is necessary to educate urban residents about the environmental function of urban forests.
We estimate a meta-regression of the willingness to pay (WTP) for green spaces in European urban and peri-urban areas obtained from contingent valuation (CV) studies to construct a benefit transfer (BT) function. Compared to previous studies that estimated meta-regression for urban green spaces, we introduce two main novelties. Firstly, we focus exclusively on Europe to reduce the heterogeneity due to unobservable factors that affect the estimates and their transferability. Secondly, we use urban socio-economic indicators and land-use data derived from terrestrial observations as proxies for the supply and demand of ecosystem services at the local level, allowing interactions between these variables and the specific characteristics of the site valued. We demonstrate that both approaches improve the accuracy of the estimates and, hence, the validity of the transferred values.
Trees have significant shading and cooling effects because of their crowns. This study investigated the cooling effects of their crown attribute on urban microclimate adjustment and thermal comfort improvement. These attributes included the ratio of crown diameter to branching position height (D/PH) and crown porosity, which were measured using the leaf area index and leaf gap ratio. Field measurements and a questionnaire survey were conducted in two urban parks in Deyang, a heavy industrial city in China, with a subtropical climate. D/PH had a significant microclimatic impact, which was evident in its strong correlation with mean radiant temperature and thermal sensation vote. On hot summer days, increased D/PH from 0 to 8 could help decrease mean radiant temperature by approximately 15 °C while improving thermal sensation from 2 (warm) to 0 (neutral). The microclimatic effect of crown porosity was found to be insignificant, since few gaps in the crown were found in the leafy season. The results provide important directions for urban planning and landscape design in terms of plant selection for improving the urban microclimate.
Urban green space (UGS) is an essential element in the urban environment, providing multiple ecosystem services as well as beneficial effects on physical and mental health. In a time of societal crisis these effects may be amplified, but ensuring that they are maintained requires effective planning and management – which is a complex challenge given the rapid changes in modern society and the need for continual adaptation. This study aims to identify the drivers that normally attract visitors to urban green spaces, and to assess the effects of social isolation on the usage and perception of UGS during a time of crisis. For this purpose a survey was conducted during the period in which restrictive measures were imposed around the world in response to the COVID-19 pandemic (March-May 2020), using an online questionnaire distributed to residents in Croatia, Israel, Italy, Lithuania, Slovenia and Spain. Results show that urban residents normally have an acute need for accessible UGS, most notably for physical exercise, relaxing and observing nature. The expected reduction in UGS visitation during the containment period was accompanied by distinct changes in the motivations of those who did visit, with a relative increase in the proportion "necessary activities" and a reduction in activities that could be considered non-essential or high-risk. Behavioral changes related to proximity were also observed, with more people going on foot to small urban gardens in some countries, and more traveling by car to green areas outside the city in others. What many respondents missed most about green spaces during the pandemic was "spending time outdoors" and "meeting other people" – highlighting the fact that while UGS normally provides places for public gathering, during the COVID-19 isolation it most importantly provided places for solace and respite. Thoughts expressed by respondents regarding man, nature and urbanization emphasized the need for greenery even when legally mandated access is limited – and many proposed concrete suggestions for urban planning that integrates green spaces of different sizes within the fabric of cities and neighborhoods, so that all residents have access to urban green spaces in a time of need.
Despite the growing body of evidence showing benefits and values of recreational ecosystem services, in sub-Saharan Africa, such evidence is extremely limited. This is problematic, and may perhaps explain their current poor condition. This study uses a random survey of households residing in Dar es Salaam to value the benefits of urban parks. The estimation is based on random utility framework where different models, with varying assumptions on preference and scale heterogeneity, are estimated. Our findings indicate that the marginal willingness to pay is highest for nature parks, followed by multi-use parks and neighbourhood parks. The willingness to pay for neighbourhood parks decreases as distance increases. Specifically, and depending on the assumptions, the marginal willingness to pay for nature parks ranges between US0.79 per month. Households are willing to pay US0.69 per month for multi-use parks. Under neighbourhood parks, this value is 0.47. The policy implications for planning and management are i) the city authorities know the type of green infrastructure to invest in different locations in Dar es Salaam, and ii) there is potential to generate extra revenue from urban parks in developing countries.
During the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, countries around the globe have implemented a certain degree of lockdown, restricting citizens' freedom of movement and freedom of assembly. This article aims to illustrate the impact that the measures against the spread of COVID-19 have on forest recreation, building on a study in an urban context around Bonn (Germany) that was conducted between April 2019 and February 2020. The quantitative and qualitative data on urban forest visits from that study were supplemented with new census data supported by selected expert interviews. We found that visitor numbers since the inception of COVID-19 measures in March 2020 have more than doubled. Visitor patterns have drastically shifted, from an even distribution throughout the day with small peaks before and after office hours to a culmination in the late afternoon. Lastly, the interviewed forestry professionals have noted that a new set of visitors, i.e. young people, families with children and non-locals, has arrived to the forest. This influx of more and novice visitors poses challenges for forest managers and urban forest policy. It is, however, also a unique opportunity for a substantial engagement of forestry with society at large, that has implications for forest policy, especially in urban areas, possibly beyond the COVID-19 pandemic era.
There is an increased interest in applying nature for addressing various urban challenges, such as those related to air pollution, climate change, and health, but the economic value of urban nature is not always well recognized. In this study we present a meta-analysis of a rapidly expanding literature that applied stated preference valuation methods to value green and blue urban nature in a variety of contexts. We estimate value transfer functions based on 60 primary studies that elicited urban nature values from in total more than 41,000 respondents worldwide. Moreover, we obtain insights into the main determinants of values of urban nature, in terms of study and methodological characteristics, types of nature, and ecosystem services. For example, using global and Euro-pean value functions, estimates of the average value of an urban park vary between 12,000USD and 33,100USD, respectively, while estimates of the average value of urban forest vary between 3,000USD and 2,250USD, respectively. We apply these value transfer functions to natural interventions in several cities in Europe, illustrating how these functions can be used for estimating the value of specific natural areas in a variety of urban settings.
We used data from 5,014 mid-aged adults in the HABITAT study, across two waves (2009 and 2011), to explore associations between perceptions of quantity of urban green space and psychological well-being. Linear regression revealed that perceptions of urban green space quantity were significantly and positively associated with psychological well-being at both time-points. A longitudinal, fixed effects, two-period difference regression revealed that within-person change in perceptions of green space quantity across two years was positively associated with psychological well-being. All associations remained significant after controlling for age, gender, household income, education, occupation and neighbourhood disadvantage. Our findings indicate that psychological well-being is associated with perceptions of local urban green space. Subjective measures of green space are an important factor that need to be considered when exploring the relationship between green space and mental health. These findings are timely given the growing interest in urban green space interventions for combating increasing mental ill-health rates as well as promoting well-being among expanding urban populations.
The global population is becoming more urban, which has increased demand for built infrastructure. This has had negative impacts on the extent and quality of urban greenspace, including tree canopy cover. Tree-planting efforts have mainly focused on street rights-of-way, but consideration should also be given to alternative locations such as cemeteries, which are free of many of the challenges facing street trees. However, the primary function of cemeteries for the interment of human remains indicates that the social dimensions need to be considered before planting trees in these environments. We employed interception surveys and manager interviews to determine how cemetery trees are valued and what concerns people have about increasing tree cover in cemeteries in Halifax, Nova Scotia (Canada).
Our results indicate that cemetery users highly value cemetery trees, particularly for shade provision, aesthetics, improved personal wellbeing, and their contribution to a sense of place. These values differ somewhat from previous values obtained using street surveys, suggesting that urban-forest values depend on the environment in which surveys take place. While cemetery managers valued trees for the creation of a park-like atmosphere, they focus their efforts primarily on interring remains, preserving history, and maintaining a neat lawn. Tree maintenance is mainly reactive, and concerns such as a lack of space and the potential for damage to monuments have limited tree-planting efforts. Unlike management personnel, cemetery users have few concerns about trees in cemeteries, and we believe they would not object to more trees being planted. Given the old age of most of the trees in Halifax cemeteries, it is likely that cemetery tree cover will decline in the future due to a lack of planting and natural regeneration. Based on the high value placed on trees by cemetery users, this may have negative implications for the future role of cemeteries as urban greenspace.
The paper commences with a brief reflection on some examples of urban strategies and challenges encountered by the state authorities in their effort to impose the abstract space of modernity as envisioned in urban master plans. The focus then shifts to urban challenges faced by authorities in Malawian urban centres, and concludes with the strategies adopted to deal with these challenges. The research relied on primary sources of data and interviews conducted with 19 key informants working in the planning environment in Malawi. These multiple sets of information were subjected to multiple analysis techniques by using Atlas.ti (qualitative data analysis software) to analyse the key informant responses and data from electronic and print media. The analysis focuses on the institution of urban planning as a state mechanism in the production of urban space in Malawi. Challenges in this regard range from the institutional and administrative framework of urban planning, legal challenges and contradictions, land rights and inherent spatial planning contradictions to political factors vis-à-vis democracy and economic factors. The study observes that the nature of conceived space and how the very apparatus that it uses to impose abstract space turns against itself when dealing with institutional challenges and incapacities. The foregoing challenges suggest that urban planning in Malawi faces a set of constraints in pursuance of its modernist ambitions of creating a planned city.
Many studies value urban ecosystem service benefits using residents' willingness to pay and supply-side analyses of ecosystem attributes. But, few studies account for consumer demand and ecosystem dis-services. To address this gap we surveyed 1052 homeowners eliciting consumer demand for key urban forest ecosystem attributes and service-disservice levels in both their properties and surrounding neighborhood. We use an approach integrating focus group, field data, and surveys to identify consumer preferences and trade-offs between urban forest ecosystem structure-functional attributes and their level of services and disservices. This method, called best worst choice, produces more estimates of utility while reducing the likelihood of introducing biases associated with human cognitive tendencies. Results indicate that consumer choices for property value were highest followed by tree condition, a structural proxy for minimizing disservices, and tree shade, a functional proxy for temperature regulation. We also found evidence of trade-offs in demand for different ecosystem services, significant scale effects, and that willingness to pay for ecosystem disservices was negative. Findings suggest that management, and studies that value and map ecosystem services, using fixed scales should account for end-user demand and functional traits, as consumers can discern trade-offs in benefits and disservices across different cognitive and spatial scales.
Understanding the benefits provided by urban trees is important to justify investment and improve stewardship. Many studies have attempted to quantify the benefits of trees in monetary terms, though fewer have quantified the associated costs of planting and maintaining them. This systematic review examines the methods used to jointly analyse the costs and benefits of trees in the urban landscape, assesses the relative balance of benefits and costs, and attempts to understand the wide variation in economic values assigned in different studies. The benefits most frequently studied are those related to environmental regulation and property values, and the available data show that these usually outweigh the costs. Aesthetic, amenity, and shading benefits have also been shown to provide significant economic benefits, while benefits in terms of water regulation, carbon reduction and air quality are usually more modest. Variation in benefits and costs among studies is attributed largely to differences in the species composition and age structure of urban tree populations, though methodological differences also play a role. Comparison between studies is made difficult owing to differences in spatiotemporal scope, and in the way urban forest composition and demographic structure were reported. The overwhelming majority of studies concern deciduous trees in Northern America, and much less is known about urban forests in other regions, especially in the tropics. Future work should thus seek to fill these knowledge gaps, and standardise research protocols across cities. In light of ambitious goals in many cities to increase tree cover, ongoing advances in valuation methods need to provide a more comprehensive accounting of benefits and costs, and to better integrate economic assessment into the decision-making process.
With the majority of the world’s human population now living in cities, urban forests provide an increasingly important range of ecosystem services, from improved air quality and climate change adaptation to better public health outcomes and increased tourism revenues. The importance of these ecosystem services in urban environments, and the central role that cities play in the lives of people around the world, have motivated various attempts to quantify the value of ecosystem services provided by urban forests. This paper reviews existing research in the fields of urban forestry, economics, sociology, and health on the value of urban ecosystem services, with a focus on cultural services, a category of ecosystem services that is of key importance to human well-being but that has suffered from a lack of empirical research. The review identified 38 studies that examined the value of mixed vegetation, 31 studies that examined the value of trees, and 43 studies that examined the value of green spaces. Psychological health is the most-studied ecosystem service category, with most research in this area focusing on the services of mixed vegetation. Social health, community economic development, and tourism are the least-studied, with most research in these areas focusing on mixed vegetation and trees. Multiple metrics were used to quantify the value of urban greenery within each ecosystem service category but only 11 metrics were assigned a monetary value. Gaps in the literature that present strong opportunities for future research include: the value of urban forests for improving social health, equitable access to ecosystem services, the impact of urban forests on community economic development, and economic valuation and green exposure metrics. We hope that this review stimulates future research in the areas highlighted and that municipalities consider including evaluations of a broad range of ecosystem services during land use planning and budgeting processes.
Most people in Europe live in urban environments. For these people, urban green space is an important element of well-being, but it is often in short supply. We use self-reported information on life satisfaction and two individual green space measures to explore how urban green space affects the well-being of the residents of Berlin, the capital city of Germany. We combine spatially explicit survey data with spatially highly disaggregated GIS data on urban green space. We observe a significant, inverted U-shaped effect of the amount of and distance to urban green space on life satisfaction. According to our results, the amount of green space in a 1. km buffer that leads to the largest positive effect on life satisfaction is 35. ha or 11% of the buffer area. In our sample, 75% of the respondents have less green space available.
Scientific papers on landscape planning underline the importance of maintaining and developing green spaces because of their multiple environmental and social benefits for city residents. However, a general understanding of contemporary human–environment interaction issues in urban green space is still incomplete and lacks orientation for urban planners. This review examines 219 publications to (1) provide an overview of the current state of research on the relationship between humans and urban green space, (2) group the different research approaches by identifying the main research areas, methods, and target groups, and (3) highlight important future prospects in urban green space research.
The selection of an appropriate forest management program is an arduous task in which opinions and information are shared. In this research, we have tried to facilitate this process by applying the Best–Worst Scaling (BWS) method in order to discriminate among the various management alternatives and to identify the management preferences stated by a group of key actors in decision making process: common property forest owners. Descriptive results from the BWS method show the ranking for preventive wildfire policies from the best (most preferred) to the worst (least preferred) policy among those evaluated by forest owners. However, and after employing a Latent Class Model, we find that common forest owners can be classified into two different classes, especially distant in terms of preferences toward forest management priorities. On one hand, one of the classes (containing older individuals) is more likely to prefer policies based on direct economic incentives and quicker returns, whereas a second class (younger) prefers other policies that also contain environmental and social spillovers or benefits. Thus, we find that BWS may be a very suitable method of elicitation of preferences in the context of decision making under multiple conflicting criteria.
With social issues again close to the top of the research agenda for marketers, policy makers are increasingly likely to be presented public opinion research findings that suggest the public is very concerned about issues within their jurisdiction. Such findings have some shortcomings as a basis for policy decision making however. It is often difficult to interpret the practical importance of consumers’ expressed levels of concern, and concern alone tells nothing about what actions will be seen as ameliorating the problem. Alternative methods, borrowed from more mainstream marketing research, can readily overcome these shortcomings. To illustrate, the authors report the findings of a low cost study designed to identify what citizens want a government department to do in response to polling suggesting high levels of concern about food safety.
Urban areas have unique characteristics that render their residents and assets particularly vulnerable to climate change. Many large urban centers are located along coasts or in low-lying areas around the mouths of major rivers, placing economic capital and human populations at risk of climate-related hazards including sea level rise and flooding from severe precipitation. Recent literature illustrates the economic and social challenges facing cities around the world as a result of climate change including energy shortages, damaged infrastructure, increasing losses to industry, heat-related mortality and illness, and scarcity of food and water. These challenges are interrelated. Economic losses make it difficult for residents to maintain their livelihoods and can therefore exacerbate social issues including poverty and hunger. At the same time, some demographic and socioeconomic characteristics of cities can make them especially vulnerable to climate change impacts. This paper reviews current literature on these issues and identifies future research needed to more fully understand climate change in the urban context.
Purpose
Most marketing researchers use rating scales to understand consumer preferences. These have a range of problems, which can be greatly ameliorated by the use of a new technique, best‐worst scaling (BWS). The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the BWS method by an empirical example, which demonstrates the steps to design and analyze a BW study.
Design/methodology/approach
A brief critique of ratings and rankings is presented. Then the basic concept of BWS is described, followed by how to use the BW method to explore how Australian and Israeli consumers choose wine in a retail store. The paper demonstrates the design of the questionnaire as well as the steps to analyze and present the results.
Findings
The BWS approach can be easily implemented for research in wine business especially for multicultural comparisons as it avoids scale confounds. After transformation of the best and worst scores of each respondent for each attribute, the data can be analyzed directly using various statistical methods and can be expressed as choice probabilities.
Research limitations/implications
The advantage of BWS is its ability to compare attributes using B−W and B/W scores. The BW method provides a better discrimination of the attributes analyzed.
Practical implications
The simplicity of the analysis and graphical presentation makes a significant contribution to practitioners as the B−W counts and probabilities of attributes are easy to obtain and understand.
Originality/value
This paper presents BWS method in a form that researchers and practitioners can use and adopt for research and market surveys. The paper presents an empirical example using BWS method to determine the importance of wine cues while consumers are choosing wine in a retail store.
Recently, urban forests have drawn attention due to interest in the idea that urban forests provide essential ecosystem services. Indeed, urban forests provide the benefits of a natural, cost effective system of green infrastructure: trees capture air and water pollutants, as well as provide shade, habitat, and even social structure. These services have a surprising but significant economic value, and attention to the design of urban forests can be a local means of capturing that value. From an ecosystem services perspective, the urban forest also reveals that the very existence of the nature in the urban area occurs as both a conceptual and a physical construct. That is, trees in the urban area result from intention and design. This essay argues that urban forestry is a local opportunity to engage in an exercise of self-determination and local identity. Urban forestry requires an investigation into the ties between the community's environmental, economic, and social needs, a realization of the potential of space and natural infrastructure, and a manipulation of the services provided by trees. Understanding the nature of urban forests as urban, contingent, and constructed empowers local governments to become ecosystem beneficiaries by effectively bringing nature into their communities.
Urban forests are integral components of urban ecosystems, which could generate significant ecosystem services, such as offsetting carbon emission, removing air pollutants, regulating the microclimate, and recreation. These ecosystem services contribute to improving environmental quality, quality of life, and sustainable urban development. Despite a long history of inserting vegetation in human settlements in China, modern scientific study of this natural-cum-cultural resource did not start until the 1990s. Specifically, the identification and valuation of ecosystem services provided by urban forests are relatively new but fast growing research fields. This paper reviews studies on the major ecosystem services provided by urban forests in China, including microclimatic amelioration (mainly evapotranspiration-cooling effects), carbon dioxide sequestration, oxygen generation, removal of gaseous and particulate pollutants, recreational and amenity. Various valuation techniques have been applied, most of which are still at the embryonic stage. There are rooms to improve the research scope and methods. Some pertinent research gaps and implications on current and future development of urban forestry in China were distilled from the research findings.
People attach multiple values to urban green spaces which play varied roles in cities. Properly designed monetary valuation surveys can ascertain their non-market value and underlying motives. This study investigates Hong Kong residents’ recreational use of urban green spaces and assesses the monetary value of these areas. A total of 495 urban residents from different neighbourhoods and socio-economic groups were interviewed. About 70% of the respondents visited urban green spaces at least weekly. Major companions during patronage were family members and then children. Exercises and clean air topped the list of visit purposes. The recreational pattern is associated with the cramped private living condition that pushes people to public open areas which are construed as extension of home space. The valuation question solicited overwhelming support, with over 80% of the respondents willing to pay to recover a possible loss of urban green spaces area by 20%. It yielded a monthly average payment of HK$77.43 (approx. 9.90 USD) per household for five years. Non-instrumental aspects played some role in the respondents’ bidding decision. The findings could assist green space planning and nature conservation, and hinted the need to consider the pluralistic community views and expectations in relevant public policies.
Moremi game reserve (MGR) in northern Botswana is one of southern Africa's most popular destination because of its impressive wildlife and wilderness areas. To maintain the wilderness nature of the park and game reserve, the Government has pursued a policy of high cost-low volume which is not necessarily based on demand and supply characteristics of the tourist market. The present study determines the perceptions of self-drive tourists and clients of mobile tour operators on the prevailing park fees in MGR and uses the contingent valuation method to determine their willingness to pay (WTP) for park fees under a management scenario in which the management of the game reserve would be improved by a hypothetical international conservation organization. Data collection involved a self-fill of a questionnaire by these tourists in the game reserve. In the first scenario the mean entrance and camping suggested by non-residents was higher than the prevailing fee. Residents suggested a lower entrance fee. In the hypothetical scenario, the mean maximum WTP for entrance and camping fee for South African and overseas tourists were higher than in the first scenario. There was a significant difference in the WTP for entrance fee between overseas tourists and South African tourists (p<0.05). Overall expenditure was significantly related to the WTP for increased park fees. The paper concludes by suggesting improvement in the MGR's facilities for better satisfaction of tourists.
Numerous papers in finance study the conditional mean of some proportion or fraction with a mass point at zero. We argue that most, if not all, of these studies use mis-specified statistical models, especially when firms or individuals choose to not do something for different reasons. To address these issues, we develop a new statistical model, the zero-inflated beta model, and apply it to the analysis of corporate capital structure decisions to demonstrate its applicability.
We examined the influence of visitors' profile, information sources, environmental dispositions, and visit evaluation on visitors' willingness to pay (WTP) for the National Marine Park of Zakynthos. Regarding WTP amounts pledged, parameters of visit evaluation were the most significant predictors. The estimated annual revenue that could be gained could cover the operating costs of the Protected Area Management Body. Visitor and visit characteristics were not significant determinants of visitor responses to the payment principle question, while they explained a relatively small amount of variation in the WTP amount multiple regression model. Nationality was not a significant predictor of WTP. All the same, Greek visitors showed more signs of pro-environmental attitudes than foreign ones. Non-use values dominated over use values and higher WTP amounts were associated with bequest value. An alternative classification of the valuation system alleged to justify WTP is proposed, where option value could be arranged together with use value components, under the assumption that future use could still be regarded as another form of use value. Moreover, existence and bequest values could be approached separately, under the hypothesis that the former is expected to be associated with relatively lower WTP amounts pledged, while the latter is expected to lead to relatively higher WTP amounts. Our study adds to the complexity and context dependency of WTP determinants. Park managers are suggested to organize environmental education programs that could decrease visitors' consensus estimation error and act as a feedback through word-of-mouth information gained by friends and relatives.
We develop attractive functional forms and simple quasi-likelihood estimation methods for regression models with a fractional dependent variable. Compared with log-odds type procedures, there is no difficulty in recovering the regression function for the fractional variable, and there is no need to use ad hoc transformations to handle data at the extreme values of zero and one. We also offer some new, robust specification tests by nesting the logit or probit function in a more general functional form. We apply these methods to a data set of employee participation rates in 401(k) pension plans. Copyright 1996 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.