Bringing nature into urban areas is largely recognized as one of the multiple benefits of green walls. Among the existing types of living walls, those made from durable building materials have a longer lifespan and require less maintenance than many typical green wall systems. In that context, there is a need to study the bioreceptivity of materials, i.e., their ability to host living organisms. This

Research on the health benefits of people’s long-term exposure to green space is lacking. Addressing this emerging topic, this study uncovers the association of green space types with a person’s healthy ageing score (HAS). We investigated the association with HAS by continuous exposure to various green space types for two years. Green space types include tree canopy, low-lying vegetation and open grass

Though most cities, particularly in the Global North, have been intensely modified by human activities certain locations still exist in varied forms of abandonment or disinvestment, often allowing for new species assemblages to flourish. These urban novel ecosystems or informal wild spaces are often perceived as in-between or overlooked, calling into question their value and social-ecological role

The Neotropical region is undergoing high levels of urban expansion and harbors the greatest diversity of vascular epiphytes globally. In cities, it could be expected that the density of woody vegetation positively affects epiphyte communities by providing substrate, resources for pollinators, and buffering microclimatic conditions. However, there is a dearth of knowledge regarding how urbanization

Globally, the loss of green spaces threatens the sustainability of many cities. Among other factors, complex land ownership and management regime reportedly disrupt land administration and development; but with inconclusive empirical evidence on how this influences the conditions, availability and development of parks. This study, using Accra, thus employs document analysis, 16 key informant interviews

Artificially developed habitats in urban ecosystems, known as novel ecosystems, have recently been underscored in terms of increasing urban green cover. However, patterns of changes in species diversity and composition in novel ecosystems over time remain poorly understood, making it unclear whether all novel ecosystems contribute to urban biodiversity. Here, we assessed how plant species diversity

Although many studies have explored the correlations between mobility intervention policies and park use during COVID-19, only a few have used causal inference approaches to assessing the policy’s treatment effects and how such effects vary across park features and surrounding built environments. In this study, we develop an interrupted time-series quasi-experimental design based on three-month mobile

As an integral part of the urban environment, urban green space (UGS) is of great significance in maintaining urban ecosystem balance and biodiversity. Spatial accessibility is an important indicator of UGS distribution and can be calculated by the two-step floating catchment area method (2SFCA). However, problems exist in previous studies using 2SFCA: (1) the dynamics in population distributions are

Urban green spaces (UGSs) play an essential role in sustainable urban development and are closely related to public health and human well-being. Previous studies seldom consider the relationships between spatial patterns and equity for the heterogeneity of built-up residential types in the city, not to mention how to place the pragmatic design strategies to explore green injustice for vulnerable neighborhoods

To stop the spread of SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus (COVID-19) governments around the world implemented lockdowns restricting public travel. In the Australian state of Victoria, this included limiting permitted reasons for leaving home and restricting movements to within a 5 km radius of one’s home. In 2020, we conducted a state-wide survey (N = 1024) of Victorians that coincided with a lockdown. We asked

Accessibility to urban green spaces is essential for urban dwellers’ health and well-being. For planning purposes different accessibility measures and indicators have been used. Some are only based on availability, others consider distance from residences, yet others rely on gravity-based methods that consider both supply and demand. Different indicators often provide diverse and sometimes contradictory

The species composition of urban green spaces (UGSs) in different climate areas has been found to be homogenized compared with that of rural forests (RFs). However, the homogenization degree in response to moisture as a single ecological factor is still unknown. Here, we used 18 cities in the temperate zone of China to analyse the tree species composition and diversity index of UGSs and compare them

Urban green space governs important ecosystem services including providing health promoting facilities. However, unequal distribution of green space among socio-demographic and socio-economic groups may create environmental injustice among inhabitants and between neighborhoods. This paper reports on access to different types of green space for residents in four Nordic cities. More precisely it explores

Lack of thermal comfort in the existing building stock in many warm summer climates and the COVID-19 pandemic have increased residents' temporary occupation of urban open spaces. However, climate change and other effects such as urban heat islands are also negatively affecting the livability of these spaces. Therefore, strategies are needed to improve the thermal conditions in these areas. In this

Urban green space is widely acknowledged to promote public health through multiple pathways. However, there is limited understanding of how the spatial patterns of green space might play different roles in such a process. This study examined potential pathways through which spatial patterns of green space improved people’s life satisfaction (LS) by reducing air pollution. A partial least squares structural

High-quality urban blue-green spaces are essential to enhance the well-being of residents. Public preferences in urban landscapes are closely related to visual behavior and can meet human needs. By combining objective eye-movement data with subjective evaluation data, public preferences for blue-green typical spatial waterfront parks were analyzed based on visual behavior. Taking Wuhan, a megacity

Urban forestry has been formally recognized as a codified academic discipline in China’s higher education since 1992. This short communication attempts to revisit the emergence and development of urban forestry in China over the last three decades. Despite the traditional disciplinary division existing between forestry (which focuses on forested landscapes in non-urbanized regions) and landscape architecture

A lack of very-high resolution land-cover data and in-situ carbon sampling in Settlement areas has limited the quantification of terrestrial carbon in Canadian Settlements and elsewhere. Without those data, it is difficult to quantify Settlement area terrestrial carbon for United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change reporting within the Land Use, Land Use Change, and Forestry sector. The

Nature experiences and active mobility both deliver well-being and health benefits but have rarely been investigated together. Conceptualizations of nature experiences largely focus on intention, and the planned motivations for visits. However, nature experiences can also be perceived incidentally, if daily living activities like trips are encouraged towards green spaces. In a public participation

The planting of trees in streets and parks is critical for urban greening efforts that seek to improve climate-change resilience in cities around the world. Ecosystem services provided by urban trees range from mitigating urban heat island effects to enhancing human well-being and conserving native biodiversity. At the same time, such tree services trade off with disservices that include risk to human

The promotion of spontaneous vegetation is recognized as a promising way to develop urban biodiversity at multiple scales. However, enhancing spontaneous vegetation in highly anthropized spaces such as cities can lead to resistance from the various urban actors who plan, manage, and use the city. An integrated approach analyzing the links between ecological, psychosocial, governance, and management

Cultural ecosystem services (CESs) intangibly influence many aspects of public daily life, and when evaluating them, it is difficult to obtain perception data. Spatial value transfer predicts the ecosystem service value of policy sites based on the spatial associations of study sites with services value. This approach has the potential to produce an evaluation without perception data. Previous studies

Greening cities is of considerable significance to creating sustainable cities. Cost-benefit analyses have shown that urban green is not only ecologically and socially desirable but also economically advantageous. However, maintaining this urban green is becoming challenging due to changing climatic conditions. With frequent heat-waves, droughts and increasing water scarcity in many regions, it is

Urban parks are among the most important urban public services. Quantifying their visitation intensity and understanding the driving forces behind their popularity is of great relevance to urban planning. We analyze the behavior of park visitors in Beijing based on phenological information extracted from social media data. Specifically, we built a dataset utilizing natural language processing techniques

Given the importance of urban parks for recreation, it is critical to understand how they, are used and perceived. Currently, relatively few studies have examined the public’s, activities and preferences at the same time. Social media data are increasingly, recognized as a promising data source to study these two aspects. However, little is, known regarding the utility and representativeness of social

Abstractis not (yet) provided. Given the length of our contribution, we wonder whether it's appropriate to include one and leave the decision to the editor. Of course, we're happy to add one if it is judged that we should do so.

Developed landscapes in urban and peri-urban environments significantly influence the diversity, abundance, and overall health of pollinator populations such as bees, butterflies, moths, and birds. Considering growing evidence demonstrating that pollinator health can be more robust in urban habitats than rural ones, the landscape development and management practices adopted in urban and suburban areas

Cities are facing too many challenges. Urban trees are essential as they provide services in terms of air pollution mitigation, freshness, biodiversity, and citizens’ well-being. Accurate data on location, species, and structural characteristics are essential for quantifying tree benefits. However, the cost of measuring thousands of individual trees through field campaigns can be prohibitive and reliable

Urban and peri-urban trees in major cities provide a gateway for exotic pests and diseases (hereafter “pests”) to establish and spread into new countries. Consequently, they can be used as sentinels for early detection of exotic pests that could threaten commercial, environmental and amenity forests. Biosecurity surveillance for exotic forest pests relies on monitoring of host trees — or sentinel trees

Informal green spaces (IGS) such as overgrown vacant lots and urban brownfields constitute a considerable amount of green resources in the city. Given that the increasingly competitive land use of the urban area, enhancing the potential ecosystem services (ES) of IGS through design and management practices is of critical importance. This literature review paper provides an overview of ES delivered

Increasing tree species diversity has become a key underpinning for communities to improve resilience of urban and community forests. Increasingly, urban forestry researchers are examining physiological traits to aid in selecting trees for urban sites. Knowledge of physiological responses also has implications for understanding species’ resilience to increased stresses associated with climate change

Trees provide multiple ecosystem services in urban centers and increases in tree canopy cover is a key strategy for many municipalities. However, urban trees also experience multiple stresses and tree growth can be impacted by urban density and impervious surfaces. We investigated the impact of differences in urban form on tree growth in the City of Merri-bek, a local government area in metropolitan

Natural parks are comprised of preserved forested natural areas that are undergoing natural ecological processes. These areas can offer a refuge for local biodiversity and contribute substantially to ecosystem services in both rural areas with relatively low population densities, as well as high-density urban areas. Forested natural parks located in urban areas should experience more stressful environmental

Urban greenspace (UGS) is important for human wellbeing, particularly physical and mental health, and is claimed to support social cohesion. However, the expansion and densification of urban centres in recent decades has occurred largely at the expense of UGS. This risks its attractiveness for users. Although recent research has identified various factors that influence the use of UGS in different

Urban forest dynamics can influence the provision of ecosystem services provision. Considerable research has been conducted to understand how these dynamics respond to urbanization, from individual patches to entire landscapes. However, most of these are cross-sectional studies based on landscape metrics, and research using a process-based perspective in this context is scarce. In this study, we present

Arthropod natural enemies (ANEs) play an indispensable role in maintaining the balance for plant communities that also significantly affects the ANE diversities not only by supporting herbivorous prey, but also by providing habitats and floral food resources. Studying the diversity of ANEs is thus vital to develop an understanding of sustainable pest control. Relationships of the vegetation diversity

The use of spontaneous wild vegetation (SWV) in the plans for urban greening in many cities is beginning to be discussed. However, little is known about how it is perceived and valued by citizens. The aim of this study was to determine the effect of SWV on landscape preferences. An online questionnaire was designed and given to a sample of 708 people in Latin America. The results show that they prefer

Climate change, human population growth, the energy crisis, and food insecurity negatively drive livelihoods in developing countries. The trend seems to be severe in arid and semi-arid areas where some livelihood strategies are naturally constrained. Tree planting is one of the mitigation and adaptation approaches applied to climate variability and change for sustainable development in sub-Saharan

Urban gardens are focal in metropolitan social-ecological infrastructure and yet they are spaces often threatened by urban development. In Berlin and Warsaw, major urban changes have prompted citizens to alter their attitudes toward the use of existing garden areas. This study tackles the socio-spatial phenomena of emerging grassroots projects and practices jointly implemented by groups of allotment

Tree risk assessment consists of the identification of a set of defects that may affect the stability of the tree, leading to a possible collapse or failure, either of the whole plant or a part of it; and also, the identification of the targets to be reached and the side effects caused by any eventual failure. Although this is a necessary practice, the large number of variables involved in this evaluation

The use of green infrastructure (GI) has been established as a way to alleviate stress and the COVID-19 pandemic has placed a new emphasis on the importance of GI as both a coping mechanism and a source of recreation. This scoping review seeks to address whether the COVID-19 pandemic affected the use of GI, specifically the ways in which the pandemic altered visitation patterns and the frequency of

Urban greenery has various beneficial effects, such as engendering peace of mind. The green view index (GVI) effectively measures the amount of greenery people can perceive and is a suitable indicator of urban greening. To date, the most common way to measure the GVI has been to photograph the street environment from eye level and use image-editing software to calculate the area occupied by vegetation

Drought and salt are key abiotic stressors in temperate cities. Biogenic volatile organic compound (BVOC) emissions, often dominated by trees, influence the urban troposphere and mediate plant-plant and plant-insect interactions. While knowledge on constitutive BVOC emissions is increasing, modulation of blends by stress has yet received little attention. We thus investigated BVOC blends and herbivore-related

Globally, biodiversity offsetting is used to balance negative impacts on biodiversity and ecosystem services caused by exploitation. In Sweden, there is an increasing interest in biodiversity offsetting in urban planning. However, there is limited understanding about the use of the concept in a municipal context. This study aims to examine and critically reflect on the uptake and use of biodiversity

Nature-based solutions (NBS) can mitigate the challenges of climate change, biodiversity loss and mental wellbeing prioritised by the global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The advantages of co-producing NBS with local communities have been explored, yet there is a lack of understanding of professional partners’ priorities in relation to specific projects, and their perceptions of the opportunities

Over the last few decades, children have spent significantly less time actively engaged in nature-based outdoor activities compared to previous generations. This has corresponded with them increasingly suffering from a range of psychological problems. Studies have been undertaken to explore the notion that such problems can be mitigated to some extent through exposure to nature within the context of

Urban vegetation has the potential to improve air quality as it promotes pollutant deposition and retention. Urban air quality models often include the effect vegetation have on pollution dispersion, however, processes involved in pollution removal by vegetation are often excluded or simplified and does not consider different vegetation characteristics. In this systematic review, we analyze the influence

Vegetation plays a critical role in climate regulation by cooling and humidifying urban regions. The climate regulation capacity of vegetation varies in different seasons, and its association with the coupling of temperature and humidity remains poorly understood. Here, we investigated the climate regulation potential of vegetation by establishing a set of indices, namely, cooling intensity (CI), cooling

Based on a social preference survey performed in Warsaw, we assessed the preferences toward alterations in urban green spaces (UGS) that should take place to ensure safe recreation. We identified how peoples’ personal characteristics are linked to the preferred changes to formulate recommendations for alterations addressing post-covid challenges while keeping the resident’s preferences in mind. We

Urban tree canopy yields numerous environmental and social benefits. This study investigates whether the marginal contribution of tree canopy cover to home values depends on certain characteristics of a property and its location. We address this using a hedonic property analysis with data from Baltimore, Maryland. Both Ordinary Least Square and Spatial Lag models were conducted, all including interaction

Urban parks have been widely recognized for the critical functions they provide in enhancing health and wellbeing. However, parks are known to be inadequately provided and non-uniformly distributed in cities, leading to an increasing interest to examine spatial equity of park distribution. Such studies have mostly focused on the distributional attributes of park supply in determining spatial equity

Through a quantitative approach, this study aimed to clarify the changes in the number of visitors and visits to green spaces according to green space type before and after the COVID-19 pandemic. We explored the changes in the proportion of repeat visitors and the distance between green spaces and visitors’ places of residence. We used KDDI Location Analyzer, which performs novel analysis using mobile

Abstract not available

Attributes of property parcel owners are hypothesized to impact land management outcomes, because different types of owners are likely to have different capacities and motivations for land stewardship. We used emerging data resources to examine how owner type relates to the prevalence of overgrown vegetation in Toledo, Ohio, and Trenton, New Jersey, USA. Overgrown vegetation was characterized at the

Evaluating the state of urban green infrastructure (UGI) is a basic step to reach urban sustainability. Two indicators were used to evaluate 89 UGI sites in Zaragoza, a medium-sized city in NE Spain: Naturalness (Nat), related to the area covered by natural components; Functioning (Fun), related to the area showing natural hydro-geomorphological features. Complementarily, 15 biophysical and social

Drivers of patterns in plant diversity remain poorly understood in tropical cities. Therefore, we investigated diversity within the tropical city of Sanya in Hainan Province of southern China by sampling one to three plots within 154 urban functional units (UFUs) based on six primary and 18 secondary UFUs. To measure diversity, we determined the number of vascular plants (species richness; SR) within