Search Results (39)

Over the last decade, the scientific community has increasingly focused on forest-based practices for human well-being (FBPW), a term that includes all forest activities (e.g., forest bathing, forest therapy, social outdoor initiatives) important for improving people’s health and emotional status. This paper aims to develop a quantitative literature review on FBPW based on big data analysis (text mining on Scopus title and abstract) and PRISMA evaluation. The two techniques facilitate investigations across different geographic areas (major areas and geographical regions) and allow a focus on various topics. The results of text mining highlight the prominence of publications on FBPW for the improvement of human health in East Asia (e.g., Japan and South Korea). Furthermore, some specific themes developed by the literature for each geographical area emerge: urban green areas, cities, and parks in Africa; sustainable forest management and planning in the Americas; empirical studies on physiological and psychological effects of FBPW in Asia; and forest management and FBPW in Europe. PRISMA indicates a gap in studies focused on the reciprocal influences of forest variables and well-being responses. An investigation of the main physiological indicators applied in the scientific literature for the theme is also developed. The main strengths and weaknesses of the method are discussed, with suggestions for potential future lines of research. Full article

This study employs Hannah Arendt’s (1958) the human condition as a philosophical framework to examine walking not merely as a physical activity but as a meaningful form of environmental consciousness. Homo faber, which denotes tool making, corresponds to the nature-based railway regeneration exemplified by the Gyeongui Line Forest Park in Seoul City, South Korea. By applying walking as a method, bifurcated themes are explored: a pedestrian-provision focus on walkability and an environmentally oriented focus consisting of nature and culture, supporting the notion that environmental elements are co-experienced through the embodied activity of walking. Thematic findings are supported by generalized additive models, grounded in a between-method triangulation attempt. The results confirm the interdependencies among the park’s environment, pedestrian satisfaction, and environmental consciousness. Specifically, the environment surrounding the park, which traverses natural and cultural elements, is strongly associated with both pedestrian satisfaction and environmental sensitivity. The research reifies walking as a fundamental human condition, encompassing labor, work, and action, while arguing for heuristic reciprocity between homo faber and nature, as well as framing walking as a sustainably meaningful urban intervention. This study contributes to maturing the theoretical understanding of walking as a vital human condition and suggests practical insights for pedestrian-centered spatial transformation. Full article

Urban parks serve as essential carbon sinks in cities, mitigating climate change by sequestering atmospheric CO₂. Maximizing the carbon sequestration potential within constrained urban spaces is a critical step toward carbon neutrality. However, few studies have systematically examined how the internal spatial composition and shape of green spaces affect their vegetation carbon sequestration capacity. This study analyzes the relationship between landscape indices and vegetation carbon sequestration density (VCSD) using field surveys and high-resolution remote sensing data from 123 urban parks in Zhengzhou, China. The results indicate that Zhengzhou’s parks sequester 14.03 Gg C yr⁻¹, with a VCSD of 0.53 kg C m⁻² yr⁻¹. Significant differences in VCSD were observed among park types, with theme parks having the highest average VCSD (0.69 kg C m⁻² yr⁻¹) and community parks the lowest (0.43 kg C m⁻² yr⁻¹). The key drivers primarily consist of landscape indices that characterize green space distribution and configuration, including the proportion of green space (Pg), largest green patch index (LPI), number of green patches (NP), green patch dispersion index (SPL), and landscape shape index (LSI), with specific thresholds identified for each. Based on these findings, category-specific spatial composition strategies are proposed to precisely enhance the carbon sequestration of park vegetation. This study provides actionable guidance for urban park designers to maximize the carbon sequestration potential of green spaces, thereby mitigating climate change and promoting human health and well-being through green space design. Full article

Understanding the characteristics of urban plant multidimensional diversity and urban green spaces (UGSs) landscape patterns is the central theme of urban ecology, providing theoretical support for UGSs management and biodiversity conservation. Taking Changchun, a provincial city, as an example, a total of 240 plots were surveyed using the stratified random sampling method. We studied the effects of the urban park construction period on plant multidimensional diversities, landscape patterns of green spaces, and their associations in Changchun City, Northeast China. The results indicated that total woody species and tree species diversity attributes were both the highest in the construction period of 2001–2020 and lowest in the construction period before 1940. However, shrub species diversity attributes were completely the opposite. Diameter at the breast height (DBH) diversity index (H_d) was the highest in the construction period before 1940 and lowest in the construction period of 2001–2020. However, the height diversity index (H_h) showed the opposite trend. Phylogenetic structures of total woody species and tree species showed divergent patterns in parks constructed before 1940 and 1940–2000 period, while that in 2001–2020 period could not be determined. In contrast, the phylogenetic structure of the shrub species clustered across all construction periods. Landscape pattern metrics varied significantly among different construction periods. Total Area (TA) was the highest in the construction period of 2001–2020. The structural equation model (SEM) revealed that construction periods exerted significant direct effects on both multidimensional diversities and landscape patterns of green spaces. Specifically, construction periods indirectly affected tree species diversity through structural diversity and influenced shrub species’ phylogenetic diversity through shrub species diversity. What is more, Patch Density (PD), Edge Density (ED), and Aggregation Index (AI) correlated with H_h, which had a direct effect on the Shannon–Wiener diversity index of tree species (H′_t). Overall, the results indicated that species diversity can be enhanced through regulating landscape patterns, rationally selecting tree species, and optimizing plant configuration. These above results can provide scientific references for the configuration of plant communities and selection of tree species in urban parks, and offer important guidance for urban biodiversity conservation and enhancement. Full article

How do young people in different neighborhoods envision their ideal communities, and how do these visions diverge from their current lived realities? To explore these questions, we use geospatial analysis to analyze data from the Dream City workshop, a youth participatory action research project based in Nashville, Tennessee. The Dream City workshop, a place-based design-thinking exercise, engaged over 2000 young people across Metro Nashville-Davidson County in envisioning their ideal city and translating these ideas into actionable changes. In this study, we analyze survey responses (n = 415) from the workshop to assess the relative importance placed on seven neighborhood resources—libraries, community centers, parks, bike lanes, sidewalks, grocery stores, and affordable housing—and examine how young people’s ideal neighborhoods differ from their lived realities. The findings reveal geographic differences in how young people prioritized resources in their ideal neighborhoods, as well as patterns of alignment and divergence between youth ideals and their lived experiences. These patterns highlight key themes in how youth perceive and value neighborhood resources. Reflecting on these findings, we describe implications for theory and practice, particularly regarding engaging young people in urban design, planning, and decision making. Full article

Greenscaping, a key sustainable practice, helps cities combat rising temperatures and climate change. Urban parks, a pivotal greenscaping element, mitigate the urban heat island (UHI) effect. In this study, we utilized high-resolution remote sensing imagery (GF-2 and Landsat 8, 9) and in situ measurements to analyze the seasonal thermal regulation of different park types in Zhengzhou, China. We calculated vegetation characteristic indices (VCIs) and landscape patterns (LMs) and employed boosted regression tree models to explore their relative contributions to land surface temperature (LST) across different seasons. Our findings revealed that urban parks lowered temperatures by 0.65 °C, 1.41 °C, and 2.84 °C in spring, summer, and autumn, respectively, but raised them by 1.92 °C in winter. Amusement parks, comprehensive parks, large parks, and water-themed parks had significantly lower LSTs. The VCI significantly influenced LST in autumn, with trees having a stronger cooling effect than shrubs. LMs showed a more prominent effect than VCIs on LST during spring, summer, and winter. Parks with longer perimeters, larger and more dispersed green patches, higher plant species richness, higher vegetation heights, and larger canopies were associated with more efficient thermal reduction in an urban setting. The novelty of this study lies in its detailed analysis of the seasonal thermal regulation effects of different types of urban parks, providing new insights for more effective urban greenspace planning and management. Our findings assist urban managers in mitigating the urban surface heat effect through more effective urban greenspace planning, vegetation community design, and maintenance, thereby enhancing cities’ potential resilience to climate change. Full article

Theme parks have been constantly updated and modified to maintain their attractiveness while managing seasonality and fluctuating visitors. Flexibility must be considered in spatial planning, design, and operations to meet the evolving daily and seasonal requirements and ensure long-term adjustability. Nonetheless, the flexibility remains unclear due to variations in its interpretation among different authors, thus hindering its adoption. Its application in spatial planning and design is still limited, primarily seen in the housing sector. This research aims to establish a framework for integrating and evaluating flexibility in the planning and design of a theme park based on the diverse interpretations of flexibility in residential and urban sectors. These interpretations were distilled into three primary dimensions: function, access, and transformation. Full article

Green infrastructures (e.g., forests, parks, and other types of green spaces) in urban areas provide people with a huge volume of ecosystem benefits. However, the quality of urban green infrastructure varies among cities in different countries/regions, and key ecological processes, maintaining mechanisms, and policy decision routes remain unclear. Here, we recognize four themes that link studies from the Asia-Pacific and European regions presented in this Editorial: (1) indicators and services of urban green spaces; (2) assembly of and changes in diverse plant communities; (3) utilization and evaluation of urban forest landscape; and (4) patterns and drivers of urban agro-forestry systems. These investigations enlarge our understanding on the theoretical exploration and methodological innovation of urban forestry studies in response to the changing environment, and shed some light on routes to achieve sustainable development goals in the context of rapid urbanization. Full article

The purpose of this study was to determine the carbon dioxide emissions produced by each type of landscape construction required for each urban park design theme in South Korea and mitigation measures. This study obtained data from four urban park construction projects in South Korea and calculated the amount of carbon dioxide generated during the construction phase using the Tier 2 method based on the amount of construction machinery used according to Korean construction standards. The results show that the three cases beginning after 2020 generated about 1.0 tCO₂ of carbon dioxide per 100 m². In each case, mechanized construction accounted for more than 60% of the total trees planted, and more than 50% of the carbon dioxide was generated in constructing forest-themed parks. Transplanting trees in their natural state emitted at least 2.5 times and up to 9.6 times more carbon dioxide than planting new trees. Pavement construction generated about 340 to 390 tCO₂, and block pavement construction generated about 20 to 70 tCO₂ per 100 m² more than pavement constructed by the wet construction method. Based on these results, in order to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, the first step should be to reduce the planting and transplanting of large trees, as this involves a high workload in terms of construction machinery at the design stage, and in the long term, it will be necessary to lead the “landscape of time” through the growth of plant materials. Second, the workload of construction machinery should be improved to induce carbon dioxide reductions through the revision of the Standard Unit Productivity Data on Construction Projects, and it is necessary to refer to past standards. Third, it may be desirable to use wet pavement, but there is a need to improve the sectional detail of block pavement to reduce mechanized work. Full article

The current research shifts from the tradition of researcher-generated and directed community study and explores a new model for data collection based on citizen-directed participation and restorative economies. This is important because the scholarship of urban planning is often separated from the practice, in which scholars undertake the bulk of the academic research and professional planners work in the field, engaging with the community and creating and implementing plans around local issues and opportunities. While urban planning trends support diverse, equitable, and inclusive engagement in visioning and shaping local development, few operationalized examples exist for citizen-led scholarship with local community application. The work outlined herein explicitly partners with local residents to collect data on both community and academic interests, and it also promotes a citizen sense of agency. Community leaders worked with the local public university to design and implement a study to solicit park use ideas and visions among three groups: youth; adults; and returning citizens. Results identify an overall theme of a lack of engagement with the community, relative to other local parks, and they also highlight four common areas of thought between the three populations—concerns about safety among park users, functional use of park space, demand for widespread park access, and desire for natural environment conservation. This work represents a viable local engagement approach including demonstrated investment in a local community and resultant increased trust; also, this work contributes valuable new knowledge about local history and the use of a community resource to inform land use planning and policy around community sustainability. Full article

Starting from the perspective of adolescents, this study selects the Maritime Silk Road Art Park in Quanzhou, Fujian Province, as the focal point for investigating environmental education requirements for urban theme parks. It comprehensively reviews existing literature and research findings, establishes evaluation indices for environmental education requirements, and systematically analyzes collected data through questionnaires and interviews. The study employs the Kano model to initiate a survey focusing on requirement types and importance ranking at the Maritime Silk Road Art Park. It aims to identify improvement factors and key factors, subsequently conducting a detailed analysis, summary, and explanation of the environmental education requirements for the youth. The results indicate that 11 out of the 25 requirement factors, categorized into five groups, significantly impact youth satisfaction. Based on the sensitivity ranking of improvement factors, these include the following: environmental education game, landscape facility, leisure and recreation facility, plant landscape planning, “five senses experience” activity, trail route design, guided signage facility, public sanitation facility, facility maintenance management, park functional zoning, and consultancy services platform. Through an in-depth analysis of the five prevalent factors influencing environmental education requirements in urban theme parks for adolescents, this study establishes a scientific evaluation system centered on the construction of urban theme parks. It integrates with the development and construction of the parks, proposing innovative and constructive suggestions based on a summary of the analysis results. The aim is to provide references and insights for similar requirements in other theme parks. Full article

As the global temperature and rapid urbanization continue to rise, urban heat islands (UHIs) also continue to increase across the world. Following the heat equity concept, UHIs disproportionately impact disadvantaged or overburdened communities. Green infrastructure (GI) has been at the forefront of UHI mitigation efforts, including nature-based solutions like parks, pervious open spaces, wooded areas, green roofs, rain gardens, and shade trees. In this paper, we use a heat equity lens to analyze community perceptions of the intersection of climate change, UHI, and GI in Camden, New Jersey—a post-industrial city with a history of environmental injustices. Based on a mixed-methods analysis of survey responses (n = 107), 11 years of relevant X (formerly Twitter) posts (n = 367), and geospatial data, we present community perceptions of and connections between climate change, UHI, and GI and discuss major themes that emerged from the data: perceived heat inequity in Camden triggers negative emotions; a public knowledge gap exists regarding climate change-UHI-GI connections; and perceived inequitable distribution of GI and certain GI planning and maintenance practices may negatively impact UHI mitigation strategies. We argue these themes are useful to urban planners and relevant professionals while planning for heat equity and mitigating UHI effects in disadvantaged urban communities like Camden. Full article

Master-Planned Residential Estate (MPRE) is an integrated housing development form in Australia. MPREs are aimed to build a sense of place attachment and community via the provision of environmental and social infrastructure. Neighbourhood parks are regarded as a significant built environmental factor linked to residents’ place attachment and well-being in the literature. Understanding place attachment is crucial for promoting residents’ well-being in neighbourhoods and enhancing the attractiveness of real estates in the housing market. However, we know little about how place attachment is facilitated for park users in neighbourhoods. The psychological process of place attachment in MPREs is unclear in the literature, with a particular lack of qualitative studies in this area. This study explored the psychological process of place attachment and its associations with neighbourhood parks in MPREs in Sydney via a qualitative case study. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 16 residents residing in two selected MPREs in Sydney during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2022. Interviews found three themes and several subthemes regarding the process of place attachment for park users in MPREs: affect (emotional bonds), behaviour (place-related fulfilment of needs, place-related social bonds, and community participation), and cognition (membership of the community, place-related memory, and cultural significance). This study contributes to understanding place attachment and human-environment relations in sustainable neighbourhoods by adding new items into place attachment models from the perspective of MPREs in Sydney. It provides valuable qualitative evidence gathered during the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings furnish empirical insights for policymakers, developers, and urban planners involved in sustainable neighbourhoods’ development and housing management in Sydney and global regions. Full article

The transition analysis and type division of landscape heritage are the effective management methods to achieve the overall conservation and targeted utilization of modern urban parks. In this study, Shenyang Zhongshan Park, the first modern urban park in Shenyang, was taken as the research object to explore the historical and cultural value of modern urban parks in Northeast China. The current status and transition characteristics of landscape heritage were analyzed, and the landscape heritage types were divided by their conservation and utilization evaluations. A total of 44 landscape heritages existed in Shenyang Zhongshan Park, including three categories, i.e., 15 historic sites, 20 cultural comprehensive sites, and 9 natural sites. Based on the IPA model, the landscape heritage was further divided into three subcategories, i.e., already designated for conservation (ADC), should be designated for conservation (SDC), and should be restricted scale (SRS). ADC was composed of one historic (Chiyoda water tower), two cultural comprehensive (water sources), and three natural (ancient trees) landscape heritages. SDC was a landscape heritage with long construction age, high importance, poor conservation, and high utilization, which can represent the cultural characteristics of the park and the need to speed up the improvement of its protection system. SRS weakened the cultural characteristics of the park. Its construction intensity should be reduced to highlight the core themes of the park (i.e., historical and cultural themes). In the future, modern urban parks should be conserved and utilized based on identifying different landscape heritage types. This study provides a theoretical basis for the management and development of modern urban parks from the perspective of conservation and utilization of landscape heritage. Full article

The rapid expansion of the cultural industry and the escalating demand for innovation have led to a growing attention on the sustainable development of cultural and creative parks. This study aims to provide a comprehensive review and prospectus of the literature on the sustainable development of these parks using CiteSpace knowledge mapping. We analyzed 662 publications from 2012 to 2023 in the Web of Science database using bibliometric methods, such as descriptive statistical analysis, network analysis, and co-citation analysis. Our findings indicate that research hotspots in the sustainable development of cultural and creative parks focus on cultural ecosystems, environmental conservation, cultural landscapes, creative tourism, park management, and urban renewal. Three primary research themes emerged: ecological service systems, assessment models, and multidimensional value. We propose five future prospects: (1) diversifying sustainable development strategies; (2) coordinating development with urban, regional, and global sustainable development goals; (3) enhancing interdisciplinary research; (4) deepening stakeholder participation; and (5) improving the evaluation index system for sustainable development. This study offers a systematic guiding framework for constructing multidimensional value for the sustainable development of cultural and creative parks, providing valuable insights for future theoretical and practical research. Full article