Landscape planning to promote well being

There has been a rapid increase in knowledge regarding the importance of the external environment to our health. Eight characteristics of the outdoor environment (serene, wild, lush, spacious, the common, the pleasure garden, festive/ centre, and culture) have been identified as fulfilling recreational needs through a number of environmental psychology studies carried out at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Alnarp, Sweden, between 1995 and 2005. The external environment has become an increasingly decisive factor in people’s choices regarding where to live and work; the landscape has become a competitive factor in attempts made by companies and local authorities to attract well-educated, mobile manpower and housing. Knowledge-based companies predominate in the Öresund Region of Sweden and Denmark, which at present has substantial recreational values making it an attractive area in which to live and work. The region’s annual population growth is approximately 20,000 to 25,000 inhabitants. The prime ministers of Sweden and Denmark have expressed a common objective that the Öresund Region be one of Europe’s cleanest metropolitan regions. The objective of this article is to present methods for implementing the eight characteristics as indicators for impact assessment in planning projects. The article presents case studies of the application of environmental impact assessments in the municipalities of Malmö and Svedala, which are situated in the immediate vicinity of the Öresund Bridge. Development plans are being evaluated through impact assessment. Mitigation and compensation measures are being created to achieve the environmental quality goals defined by the eight characteristics. The case studies referred to in this article are in very early planning phases, either the feasibility or pre-feasibility phase. This article does not present complete investigations of balancing, but discusses some principal ways of defining values and suggests measures for mitigating and compensating for negative impacts on existing values

Analysis of restorative outdoor characteristics on a university campus

It has been hypothesized that work requiring intense direct attention is more efficient if the workplace is surrounded by certain restorative qualities of nature. If this is the case, then universities and high tech business parks – typical environments for intense creativity, concentration and innovative productivity – should benefit from such green restorative qualities. I believe this aspect must be considered much more carefully in professional environmental work. This paper presents a relevant research background and a method for evaluating important outdoor environmental characteristics. The method developed here is applied to the highest ranked Swedish research university: Karolinska Institute, Stockholm

Health-Promoting Nature-Based Paradigms in Urban Planning

Since the 19th century, urban planning has largely been guided by ambitions to improve the population’s wellbeing and living conditions. Parks and green areas have played a significant role in this work. However, the confidence in the function of green areas, and thus the motives for creating urban parks and green open spaces, have shifted over the years, which has affected both the planning and design of green areas. This entry describes three overarching paradigm shifts in urban planning, from the end of the 18th century to today, and the focus is on the major paradigm shift that is underway: how green areas can mitigate climate effects, increase biodiversity and at the same time support people’s health and living conditions in a smart city

Green perception for well-being in dense urban areas

A previous study (n = 24,819) of semi-urban and rural areas in the Skåne region, southern Sweden, showed that people living in flats are dependent on having green space with several characteristics for different affordances close to their homes to be satisfied with their neighbourhood. The two studies presented in this paper focuses on the urban area of Malmö, the largest city in Skåne. Equivalent criteria for the presence of certain characteristics within 300 m from home were used, however analysed from other kinds of data than the regional study. In both the previous rural/semi-urban study as well as the urban studies presented here, respondents report being more satisfied with their neighbourhood the more qualities that are present within 300 m of their home. Less than half of the apartment-dwelling respondents in the Malmö urban area are satisfied with their neighbourhood if less than half of the characteristics are available within 300 m. Even when there are few characteristics close by, people living in their own house are generally more satisfied with their neighbourhood (70 % or more irrespective of area type) than tenants are. A relatively high concordance between the two studies, despite the fact that they represent different kinds of landscape (semi-urban and rural vs. urban) and different scales (region vs. municipality), adds validity to the recreational characteristics as a tool for assessing well-being qualities of neighbourhood landscapes. The results from the studies of Malmö were also related to average household income and a clear association between our studies’ data on accessibility to serene areas and household income was found. This finding suggests that creating additional serene green space in low-income areas could be a tool to help the municipality reduce segregation

Moving to serene nature may prevent poor mental health—results from a swedish longitudinal cohort study

Green spaces are recognized for improving mental health, but what particular kind of nature is required is yet not elucidated. This study explores the effect of specific types of recreational nature qualities on mental health. Longitudinal data (1999/2000 and 2005) from a public health survey was distributed to a stratified sample (n = 24,945) of a Swedish population. People from rural or suburban areas (n = 9230) who had moved between baseline and follow-up (n = 1419) were studied. Individual geographic residence codes were linked to five predefined nature qualities, classified in geographic information systems (GIS). Any change in the amount of or type of qualities within 300 m distance between baseline and follow-up was correlated to any change in mental health (as measured by the General Health Questionnaire) by logistic regression models. On average, the population had limited access to nature qualities both pre- and post-move. There was no significant correlation between change in the amount of qualities and change in mental health. However, the specific quality “serene” was a significant determinant with a significantly decreased risk for women of change to mental ill-health at follow-up. The objective definition of the potentially health-promoting quality may facilitate implication in landscape practice and healthy plannin

Bra utemiljö i verksamhetsområden

Våra arbetsområden, särskilt kunskapsintensiva såsom universitetscampus och teknologiparker, karaktäriseras bl. a av att personal och studerande verkar under stress i konkurrensutsatta branscher i internationell tävlan. Lottrup m fl (2013) har visat att grönområden på arbetsplatser har betydelse för stress och trivsel. Stress och empati är omvänt korrelerade. Allt talar för att utemiljöer inom verksamhetsområden bör ha lämpliga grönkvaliteter för att gynna empati och samarbete. Ekosystemens funktioner för hälsa/välbefinnande är mycket viktig där många människor frekvent vistas. Stressrelaterade åkommor är den vanligaste orsaken till sjukskrivning idag i Sverige. Den snabbaste ökningen av stressjukdom sker i åldersgruppen 18-29 år. Därför bör det vara av särskild vikt att miljöerna på universitet innehåller stressåterhämtande kvaliteter. Universitetens campus är särskilt lämpliga för forskning om olika gröna kvaliteters effekter för stressreduktion. Studenters och forskares situation är relativt lika internationellt, varför olikheter i kulturella och socioekonomiska förutsättningar har mindre betydelser vid jämförelse av campusmiljöer än av andra typer av arbetsplatser länder emellan. Våren 2013 deltog undertecknad och landskapsarkitekt Jerker Nyblom, AH, i NAEP´s (National Association of Environmental professionals) årskonferens i Los Angeles (Skärbäck, 2013). I samband därmed besöktes UCLA, Stanford, Berkeley och Google‐plex i Silicon Valley. Arbetsområdenas utemiljöer fotodokumenterades och kvaliteterna analyserades med avseende på åtta karaktärer för hälsa och välbefinnande, som forskning på Alnarp har definierat (Grahn m fl 2005,). De åtta karaktärerna benämns här 1) Rofylldhet Serene, 2) Vild Wild, 3) Artrikedom Lush, 4) Rymd Space, 5) Allmänning Common, 6) Lustgård Pleasure garden, 7) Center/fest Centre/fest, 8) Kulturhistoria Culture. Underlag för campusområdenas planeringsprinciper erhölls genom personlig guidning av lokala planeringsansvariga på Berkeley och Stanford. För Stanford redovisades även en student‐ och medarbetarenkät med rangordning av populära och impopulära platser. Googles huvudkontor, Googleplex nära Stanford har besökts och fotoinventerats avseende de åtta karaktärerna, och redovisas här som bilaga. Besöket på UCLA skedde annandag påsk med få studenter och utan möte med någon central medarbetare. Samma vår besökte Jonathan Stoltz Indian Institute of Technology, Madras. En enkätundersökning genomfördes med planeringsstudenter och campus fotoinventerades. Studien gjordes i samband med en utbyteskonferens mellan Lunds universitet och tre universitet i Indien. Med detta underlag har de olika utemiljöerna analyserats och jämförts översiktligt konceptuellt som ett steg på vägen att få fram generell kunskap och metodik för ekosystemfunktionen hälsa/välbefinnande i allmänhet och för arbetsområden i synnerhet. Studien ger en del svar, och skärper en del frågeställningar. Erik Skärbäc

Area-aggregated assessments of perceived environmental attributes may overcome single-source bias in studies of green environments and health: results from a cross-sectional survey in southern Sweden

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Most studies assessing health effects of neighborhood characteristics either use self-reports or objective assessments of the environment, the latter often based on Geographical Information Systems (GIS). While objective measures require detailed landscape data, self-assessments may yield confounded results. In this study we demonstrate how self-assessments of green neighborhood environments aggregated to narrow area units may serve as an appealing compromise between objective measures and individual self-assessments.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>The study uses cross-sectional data (N = 24,847) from a public health survey conducted in the county of Scania, southern Sweden, in 2008 and validates the Scania Green Score (SGS), a new index comprising five self-reported green neighborhood qualities (Culture, Lush, Serene, Spacious and Wild). The same qualities were also assessed objectively using landscape data and GIS. A multilevel (ecometric) model was used to aggregate individual self-reports to assessments of perceived green environmental attributes for areas of 1,000 square meters. We assessed convergent and concurrent validity for self-assessments of the five items separately and for the sum score, individually and area-aggregated.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Correlations between the index scores based on self-assessments and the corresponding objective assessments were clearly present, indicating convergent validity, but the agreement was low. The correlation was even more evident for the area-aggregated SGS. All three scores (individual SGS, area-aggregated SGS and GIS index score) were associated with neighborhood satisfaction, indicating concurrent validity. However, while individual SGS was associated with vitality, this association was not present for aggregated SGS and the GIS-index score, suggesting confounding (single-source bias) when individual SGS was used.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Perceived and objectively assessed qualities of the green neighborhood environment correlate but do not agree. An index score based on self-reports but aggregated to narrow area units can be a valid approach to assess perceived green neighborhood qualities in settings where objective assessments are not possible or feasible.</p

Area-aggregated assessments of perceived environmental attributes may overcome single-source bias in studies of green environments and health: results from a cross-sectional survey in southern Sweden

Most studies assessing health effects of neighborhood characteristics either use self-reports or objective assessments of the environment, the latter often based on Geographical Information Systems (GIS). While objective measures require detailed landscape data, self-assessments may yield confounded results. In this study we demonstrate how self-assessments of green neighborhood environments aggregated to narrow area units may serve as an appealing compromise between objective measures and individual self-assessments. Methods The study uses cross-sectional data (N = 24,847) from a public health survey conducted in the county of Scania, southern Sweden, in 2008 and validates the Scania Green Score (SGS), a new index comprising five self-reported green neighborhood qualities (Culture, Lush, Serene, Spacious and Wild). The same qualities were also assessed objectively using landscape data and GIS. A multilevel (ecometric) model was used to aggregate individual self-reports to assessments of perceived green environmental attributes for areas of 1,000 square meters. We assessed convergent and concurrent validity for self-assessments of the five items separately and for the sum score, individually and area-aggregated. Results Correlations between the index scores based on self-assessments and the corresponding objective assessments were clearly present, indicating convergent validity, but the agreement was low. The correlation was even more evident for the area-aggregated SGS. All three scores (individual SGS, area-aggregated SGS and GIS index score) were associated with neighborhood satisfaction, indicating concurrent validity. However, while individual SGS was associated with vitality, this association was not present for aggregated SGS and the GIS-index score, suggesting confounding (single-source bias) when individual SGS was used. Conclusions Perceived and objectively assessed qualities of the green neighborhood environment correlate but do not agree. An index score based on self-reports but aggregated to narrow area units can be a valid approach to assess perceived green neighborhood qualities in settings where objective assessments are not possible or feasible.

Green qualities in the neighbourhood and mental health - results from a longitudinal cohort study in Southern Sweden

Background: Poor mental health is a major issue worldwide and causality is complex. For diseases with multifactorial background synergistic effects of person-and place-factors can potentially be preventive. Nature is suggested as one such positive place-factor. In this cohort study we tested the effect of defined green qualities (Serene, Space, Wild, Culture, Lush) in the environment at baseline on mental health at follow-up. We also studied interaction effects on mental health of those place factors and varied person factors (financial stress, living conditions, and physical activity). Methods: Data on person factors were extracted from a longitudinal (years 1999/2000 and 2005) population health survey (n = 24945). The participants were geocoded and linked to data on green qualities from landscape assessments, and stored in the Geographical Information System (GIS). Crude odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) were calculated, and multivariate logistic analyses were performed. Results: Mental health was not affected by access to the chosen green qualities, neither in terms of amount nor in terms of any specific quality. However, we found a reduced risk for poor mental health at follow-up among women, through a significant interaction effect between physical activity and access to the qualities Serene or Space. For men the tendencies were similar, though not significant. Regarding the other three green qualities, as well as amount of qualities, no statistically certain synergistic effects were found. Likewise, no significant synergies were detected between green qualities and the other person-factors. Only advanced exercise significantly reduced the risk for poor mental health among women, but not for men, compared to physical inactivity. Conclusions: The results do not directly support the hypothesis of a preventive mental health effect by access to the green qualities. However, the additive effect of serene nature to physical activity contributed to better mental health at follow-up. This tendency was equal for both sexes, but statistically significant only for women. Objective landscape assessments may be important in detangling geographic determinants of health. This study stresses the importance of considering interaction effects when dealing with disorders of multifactorial background