Trees and large shrubs in urban environments provide a wide array of ecosystem services, enhancing the well-being of urban residents. Public trees in Sweden are managed by local governments, but private-owned urban trees, which represent a large proportion of the total urban tree population, are managed by residential property owners. Residential urban trees are therefore generally not included in

Due to the steady growth of cities and increased sensitivity to climate change, a rethinking of urban planning is required to manage resources efficiently and increase urban quality. Under current conditions, it is important to expand green and open spaces with all their green infrastructure and to optimize land use in terms of quality and quantity. There is a lack of tools for the specific control

Urban areas face multiple environmental challenges that interact with climate change, including the urban heat island (UHI) effect. Plants can be a nature-based solution for UHI-effect mitigation, alongside various artificial materials, but their performance is only commonly compared to concrete or asphalt. Given shade's ubiquity in the urban environment, it also has a strong potential to interact

Management of urban trees is key to sustaining and increasing essential ecosystem services, and most management decisions are made based on urban tree inventories. Vitality is one of the key parameters when conducting tree inventories. However, consensus on how vitality should be assessed is lacking, and there is limited understanding of how visual vitality assessments are affected by aspects of different

The paper contributes to the literature on urban forestry and urban sustainability by filling gaps in the knowledge on viable business, financing, and governance models for nature-based solutions. Through two case studies, we provide empirical illustrations for business models based on nature-based solutions that are both viable and scalable. We confront the financial and governance challenges identified

This study analyzes the planting decisions made by urban greenery managers in Warsaw between 2012–2017. The results showed that the species composition of planted trees was suboptimal. The tree species with higher dieback were planted more often than the tree species with relatively lower dieback. Moreover, the conducted econometrical analysis revealed that this important characteristic was not statistically

In rapid urbanization processes, the high density and fast rhythm of the urban living environment lead to mental tension, life pressure, anxiety, and other problems for people, which facilitates negative emotions. Studies have confirmed that an urban green space is a “restorative environment" that can effectively alleviate negative emotions and improve moods. Social media data can be objectively quantified

The development of green spaces in urban areas is rapidly on the rise as more people are keen to maintain a clean and green atmosphere around where they live and work. Also, the link between the physical world and the internet has been a driving force in enhancing people's quality of life which has resulted in the most recent and rising technologies, collectively referred to as the Internet of Things

Greenspace has positive influences on urban environment and human health, and thus it is desirable to acquire data for (urban) greenspace mapping. Nowadays, global and regional open land-use/land-cover datasets have become essential sources for greenspace mapping, but few studies have quantitatively compared them. To fill this gap, this study carries out a quantitative comparison of six global and

The governance of urban green spaces (UGS) often involves a wide range of stakeholders, each with their own views, preferences, and needs. However, the traditional top-down governance of UGS has struggled to meet the needs of today’s public. By reflecting the different needs of different social groups, public participation has become one of the innovative solutions used to solve the problems of public

Relatively little is known about the dynamics of tropical urban forests, their phylogenetic diversity, as well as the socioeconomic and ecological factors that influence overall diversity across the urban landscape. However, permanent forest inventory and monitoring plot networks are increasingly being established across forests and cities of the world to monitor structural and functional attributes

The loss and transformation of habitats due to human impact are commonly regarded as major factors decreasing the diversity of pollinators. However, there is also some evidence that industrial infrastructure can play a positive role in shaping the composition of many animal communities. Still, little is known about how artificial linear structures, such as roads, railways, and electric power lines

A proper categorization of vacant lands allows for more appropriate and successful reuse/management strategies. As such, proper definitions and classifications are necessary for the reutilization of vacant sites. Seeking to understand and develop vacant land typologies, this study triangulates data created through an extensive literature review, field experts’ interviews, and an online survey to residents

Municipal leaders worldwide are showing substantial interest in urban greening. This encompasses incentives, policies, and programs to vegetate urban landscapes, and it often includes urban tree planting initiatives (TPIs). Over the past decade there has been a seven-fold increase in scholarly use of terms denoting TPIs, and roughly two-thirds of associated studies address TPIs in the United States

Regular access to natural environments has been shown to have beneficial effects on children’s health, development and academic attainment. This study assesses the current capacity for English primary schools to provide access to nature, and the opportunities and challenges of doing so. Using a mixed-methods approach combining questionnaires delivered at schools across England, semi-structured interviews

Green roofs offer numerous environmental benefits, and thus their implementation is considered an initiative to create sustainable cities. However, the characteristics of green roofs that could enhance arthropod biodiversity and ecological functioning are poorly known, especially for South American countries. Here, we analyzed the influence of several characteristics of green roofs (plant species richness

Urban trees provide a range of vital social and environmental services. Currently, inventories of individual urban trees are conducted in-situ by professional arborists. Such an approach to urban tree inventories means they are challenging to maintain and only capture information describing trees on accessible land. Whilst remote sensing approaches have shown the potential to derive individual tree

Water availability can be a major abiotic constraint for plant success in urban areas. To ensure resilient green spaces, understanding which species are able to cope with low water availability is paramount for plant selection. However, in the horticultural industry, descriptions of species’ responses to low water availability are oftentimes poorly defined, inconsistent across sources, and informed

COVID-19 case numbers in 161 sub-districts of Wuhan were investigated based on landscape epidemiology, and their landscape metrics were calculated based on land use/land cover (LULC). Initially, a mediation model verified a partially mediated population role in the relationship between landscape pattern and infection number. Adjusted incidence rate (AIR) and community safety index (CSI), two indicators

Understanding the distribution of urban tree canopy cover and its relationship with socioeconomic characteristics is critical for informing urban planning and ecological research. However, most knowledge on this topic comes from studies in high-income countries (e.g., North America), and thus, little is known for other cultural, ecological, and political contexts. Here, we derived a high-spatial resolution

Globalization and mobile societies challenge large cities to provide not only basic services, such as water or housing, but also places where long-term residents and (forced) migrants are able to form bonds and attribute meanings. The question of what types of urban settings can foster place attachment through interaction has been poorly investigated. To address this research gap, a qualitative study

Public urban green spaces provide people with many benefits. Understanding the relationship between public urban green spaces’ characteristics and human well-being components may assist in future planning and design of these spaces. This study performed a systematic bibliographic review to analyse the relationships between green spaces' specific characteristics and human well-being components. The

This study examines the association between the elements of an urban greenspace and users’ subjective well-being (SWB). In addition to the urgency of addressing climate change, co-benefits such as health and well-being are stimulating increasing investment in urban green infrastructure. Previous studies have established a link between SWB and urban greenspace and identified connectedness to nature

Social distancing and home confinement during the first wave of Covid-19 have been essential to helping governments to flatten the infection curve but raised concerns on possible negative consequences such as prolonged isolation or sedentary lifestyles. In this scenario, gardening activities have been identified as a plausible tool to buffer the mental health consequences of forced home confinement

Pruning is commonly used to mitigate the risk of tree failure by selectively removing tree parts exposed to the wind, but there have been few studies examining changes in wind loads after pruning, especially for large, open-grown trees. In this study, the wind-induced vibration and bending moments of Senegal mahogany (Khaya senegalensis) were monitored before and after a series of pruning treatments:

Rapid urban growth poses the global challenge of mitigating urbanization impacts on biodiversity. The amount and spatial arrangement of vegetation could help managers and urban planners improve habitat conditions for fauna; however, whether aggregated patterns of trees and shrubs promote greater diversity of wildlife in urban areas remains poorly understood. To provide empirical evidence to help planning

Atmospheric particulate matter (PM) pollution has become a major global public health concern, particularly in urbanizing and rapidly developing nations such as China. Health effects from PM pollution include increases in cardiovascular and respiratory illnesses and problems during pregnancy and child development. Developing methods to mitigate PM pollution is a major priority for urban planning. Urban

While often considered “open grown,” urban trees are often found in relatively close proximity to neighboring trees, buildings, and other elements of urban infrastructure. These spatial arrangements may provide wind protection during severe weather events such as hurricanes. Beyond this very local scale, urban tree abundance and condition are often influenced by the greater sociodemographic context

The characteristics of birds' sounds assume a primary role in tourists' mental restoration and stress recovery. The aim of this research is the evaluation of birds' sound composition in mental restoration of urban tourists to develop a decision support system as a practical tool. In this order, the recorded sounds of six birds were composed (57 composed sounds) and the human perception approach was

This study proposes a framework of biophilic urbanism that focuses on the adaptation of climate change, which is a representative urban problem facing modern cities. We derived a basic framework of biophilic urbanism by analyzing and reviewing the concepts and strategies of biophilic urbanism presented in previous studies. Based on this review, an advanced biophilic urbanism framework is suggested

The structure of bird communities living in cities may have different characteristics depending on the magnitude of building versus green area. In this study, we evaluated the contribution of residential backyards to the diversity of urban birds in the city of Jacareí, São Paulo, Brazil. We hypothesized that the composition and structure of bird communities would change according to (1) backyard, (2)

Urbanization is causing rapid loss of important habitats for wildlife and most birds in urban areas are therefore unable to maintain a viable population due to poor habitat. However, some birds are able to retreat to urban greenspaces for safety and survival such that these areas may sometimes support high biodiversity. Understanding the dynamics that shape the distribution of birds in urban greenspaces

Urban green space provides refuges for species that are unintentionally introduced by humans and which do not belong to the remnants of natural habitats in urban areas. However, the quantitative relationships between urban green space properties and these spontaneous species are unclear. To address this, we surveyed plant species occurring in urban green patches in Kunming city, which is located in

Vacant residential lots are ubiquitous in cities. While there is increasing interest in enhancing the aboveground habitat and biodiversity of vacant lots via restoration, vacant lot restoration may also affect the properties of and ecosystem services provided by soil. We assessed the effects of four vacant lot plant community establishment techniques (seed bombing, broadcast seeding, plug planting

Coordination of sound and view management is essential to construct tranquility and enhance the visitor experience in protected areas. However, research on audio-visual interactions has historically primarily focused on urban environments, revealing a significant gap in protected areas. In China, soundscape research is urgently needed in protected areas to preserve the long tradition of soundscape

Pocket parks have the characteristics of being small in size, low in expenditure, easy to access and flexible in shapes and location. Several studies have explored the environmental and social benefits as well as the design principles of pocket parks. However, a meta-analysis of research on pocket park is lacking. There is also no previous comparison of Chinese and English language research papers

As cities around the world increase in density, and the number of urban green spaces decrease, the role cemeteries play is becoming increasingly important. Highly vegetated cemeteries can provide important public green spaces in urban environments and give recreational opportunities to city residents. They are also important historical and cultural landscapes, and as places of burial they contain special

The People's Republic of China (PRC) has faced rapid urbanization, especially during recent decades. Urban green spaces have received more attention than before, but the planning and construction of cities’ green space systems (GSSs) have faced many challenges. As many countries worldwide are faced with similar challenges, we review the history and current state of green space system planning (GSSP)

Urbanization, environmental change and ageing are putting urban health at risk. In many cities, heat stress is projected to increase. Urban green spaces are considered as an important resource to strengthen the resilience of city dwellers. We conducted a questionnaire survey in two structurally distinct parks in Leipzig, Germany, on hot summer days in 2019. We assessed the respondents’ activity patterns

Water availability and conservation are among today’s top global issues, and urban irrigated landscapes have a pronounced role to play in developing solutions to water scarcity problems. Innovative approaches are needed to promote water conservation outside of the home, and social norms comprise one such type of strategy that can accelerate the use of landscape water conservation technologies and practices

Green roofs are urban design elements providing ecosystem services in cities, yet little is understood about how to plan for their biodiversity and conservation outcomes. Using both green roof practitioner and ecological knowledge as a guide, this study examined how well we can predict the relationships between plant species richness and the characteristics of green roofs. Forty-two roofs in three

With ongoing rapid urbanization, urban biodiversity conservation is becoming a primary issue for the maintenance of urban ecosystem functions, and given that birds play valuable ecosystem roles, their preservation is a matter of both ecological and social importance. Although it is generally considered that urban areas have low biodiversity and ecosystem value, these areas can serve as important wintering

Healthy Trees – Healthy People (HT-HP) is an outreach and education program created to enlist and train participants in exotic pest detection while providing them with structured opportunities to connect with urban nature and increase their physical and emotional health. HT- HP creates infrastructure to increase engagement by the urban populace in the urban tree canopy. The program solicits participants

Fear of crime may restrict people’s use of urban green spaces and thus decrease those spaces’ potential public health benefits. Managerial measures in public green spaces that enhance perceived safety are therefore necessary. However, park managemnet in the Nordic countries seems to lack the knowledge and practice of assessing park users’ perceptions of safety. The objective of this paper was to develop

Forest City is a new city project being built from scratch on four artificial islands off the coast of Malaysia by one of China’s largest property developers. Designed to accommodate up to 700,000 people, Forest City is created by and for Chinese nationals as a gated, luxury enclave in Malaysia. While Forest City is built on top of Malaysia’s largest seagrass field and destroys or damages coastal mangroves

Large parks—including regional parks, state parks, and national forests and parks—have particular health, social, and environmental benefits. Thus, promoting equal access to large parks is increasingly becoming a goal of environmental justice activists, planners, and policymakers. Disadvantaged populations (e.g., low-income people of color) have worse walking access to large parks than more privileged

This study draws a structured questionnaire survey on visitors to the National Xinhua Urban Forest Park, located in the southern part of Taiwan. Consequently, it deploys the Impact Range Performance Analysis (IRPA) and Impact-Asymmetry Analysis (IAA) in evaluating the service quality of the park under investigation, which shed some light on the service/management areas calling for amelioration. It

Combining both biological diversity and cultural significance, populations of big trees in Japan are considered important. Furthermore, individual specimens, often with broken and unusual tree form, are highly striking and create a ‘sense of place’ in a locale. The giant Castanopsis sieboldii trees belonging to the family Fagaceae have a trunk circumference of over 3 m. These trees are distributed

Uncertainty information associated with urban forest models are beneficial for model transparency, model development, effective communication of model output, and decision-making. However, compared with the extensive studies based on the applications of urban forest models, little attention has been paid to the uncertainty of the output from these models. In this study, bootstrap and Monte Carlo simulation

This study aims to investigate the heterogeneous preferences for ecological services, cultural services and facilities, and information-related facilities in an urban wetland park in Xixi National Wetland Park, China, and explore choice inconsistencies among individuals via a multi-profile best-worst scaling choice experiment. Face-to-face surveys were conducted in the winter 2018 and summer 2019,

Urban forests, integral to a city’s critical infrastructure, are traditionally under the mandate of local governments, yet in reality, the decision-making for their conservation is influenced by a myriad of factors operating at the neighbourhood level. In some neighbourhoods, decisions are heavily influenced by formal Resident Associations (RAs). Using a case study approach, in depth interviews were

Urban forests affect land surface temperature (LST) within a city due to the cooling effect of transpiration. The latter depends on tree health, but it can also be affected by the structure and composition of forest, as a mono-species environment may potentially worsen the health of urban forest. The following hypotheses are therefore proposed: a) greater tree diversity within urban forest results

Different types of structures and substrates are used for urban extensive green roofs. However, there is not enough information about the performance of these structures and substrates for growing edible plants in tropical climate conditions. This study evaluates the best combination of three different modular extensive green roof structures and two types of local substrates (compost and soil + biochar)

The relationships of structural root depth, stem girdling roots, stem diameter, and boulevard width were studied on the condition of four tree species (Acer saccharum L., Celtis occidentalis L., Fraxinus pennsylvanica Marsh, and Tilia cordata Mill.) grown as street trees. The relationship between depth from the soil surface to the structural roots and development of stem encircling roots and stem girdling

The degradation and scarcity of floral resources represent one of the greatest threats to pollinators on a global scale. In a 2-year study, we aimed to assess the food resources in five members of Ranuculaceae family (Hepatica nobilis Mill., Anemone nemorosa L., A. ranunculoides L., Ranunculus cassubicus L., R. lanuginosus L.), which are common to the ground layer of the deciduous forest habitat in