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

The values and benefits of environmental elements on housing rents

© 2016 Elsevier Ltd. The value provided by availability of environmental elements on human quality of urban life is difficult to assess and incorporate into urban planning and development. Researchers worldwide have seldom objectively factored these attributes into property pricing and associated decisions. This study contends that a better understanding of the effect of environmental elements requires systematic study of the relationship between objective and subjective measures of environmental phenomena and human responses. This paper summarizes the outcomes from applying Hedonic Pricing (HP) and Life Satisfaction (LS) methods - providing valuation in an increasingly expanding and privatized property Iranian market. A survey was carried out from 400 households that are more likely to make location choices and pay rent and property expenses in the city of Shiraz. The findings indicates that Shiraz neighbourhoods are likely to be characterized by deep environmental segregation. This study informs the decisions of policy makers and property developers regarding sales and purchases conversion, property development, urban nature conservation, and design of ecological green-space networks

A LANDFILL CLOSURE AND HOUSING VALUES

"The United States disposes roughly 60% of the municipal solid waste it generates each year in solid waste disposal facilities, commonly known as landfills. Hedonic pricing studies have estimated the external costs of landfills on neighboring housing markets, but the literature is silent on what happens to property values after the landfill closes. Original housing price data collected both before and after a landfill closure are used to estimate how a landfill closure affects neighboring property values. Results of both a hedonic pricing model and a repeat-sales estimator are used in the analysis. "("JEL "H42, H72, Q51, Q53, R21) Copyright (c) 2009 Western Economic Association International.