Landschaften für Erholung und Gesundheit ¶

Stress-related illnesses are a major problem among urban societies. Greenspaces near residential areas are crucial for supporting mental well-being and mitigating urban stressors. While various studies have demonstrated the benefits of greenspaces for stress recovery, the constraints to experiencing these benefits are less explored. This study aims to explore the multidimensional factors constraining psychological restoration in everyday outdoor activities, to inform urban planning and enhance environmental psychology theories. In an online survey 1134 Swiss residents were presented with an open-ended question about the constraints they experienced during their latest outdoor activity, along with closed-ended questions about their personal traits, the activity performed, and the restorativeness of the experience. Through an inductive coding process followed by a deductive classification, we identified a wide range of constraints and categorized them into structural, interpersonal, and intrapersonal constraints, further distinguishing between supply and demand factors. Structural supply constraints were predominant, particularly overcrowding, traffic, and noise, which negatively correlated with the perceived restorativeness of the environment. Intrapersonal demand constraints, such as thoughts and stress were mentioned frequently, and hindered restoration outcomes. Women and younger adults were more frequently affected by these constraints. Results underscore the subjective and context-dependent nature of restorative experiences in everyday environments, shaped by the interplay of individual, societal, and environmental factors. Our findings highlight the need for inclusive planning and social measures to support vulnerable groups in enhancing the restorative potential of outdoor activities in nearby greenspaces.

Lockdown measures implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic led to a rise in people’s visits to forests and urban green spaces. However, as vaccination efforts progressed and infection rates declined, it remained uncertain whether forest visitation levels would return to pre-pandemic norms or even decreased. To explore the post-crisis status of forest visits, we conducted a comprehensive analysis using data from a representative online panel survey conducted in Switzerland. Specifically, we compared data collected one week prior to the lockdown (in March 2020), on visit frequency, duration, activities and locations visited, with data collected two weeks after the lockdown was enforced (2020), and also with data from the summer of 2021. We aimed to determine if forest visitation had returned to normal by the time of the third survey. Our findings indicate that during times of crisis, visitation patterns and recreational preferences in urban green spaces, such as forests, undergo changes, with some of these changes exhibiting greater persistence than others. Meanwhile the activities during a forest visit as well as motivations of forest visits seem to return to their initial levels after the crisis, for example, the changes in the frequency or lengths of the visits appear to be more persistent. Recognizing and understanding these changes are crucial for urban planners and forest management authorities to adapt policies and effectively address the evolving needs of visitors.

Water bodies form important habitats for animals and plants. At the same time, they offer special recreational benefits, through nature experiences, their scenic quality or as a basis for sport activities. However, high visitor numbers and problematic behaviour can lead to disturbances in nature. To maintain the recreational benefits of such public spaces and to protect nature, campaigns are a useful means, in addition to spatial interventions and legal regulations. This study evaluates a campaign to reduce negative effects on nature due to the increasingly popular activity of stand-up paddling. A written pre-post survey of the treatment group at Lake Greifensee was completed by the stand-up paddlers on site on tablets or location-independently on their own device. The control survey took place at Lake Lauerzersee, but mainly via various disseminators and social media in German-speaking Switzerland, starting with the pre-survey and ending with the post-survey at Lake Greifensee. The total sample comprised 334 people. To evaluate the campaign, behavioural predictors - based on the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) (Ajzen, 1991) - and self-reported behaviour of stand-up paddlers with and without exposure to the campaign were compared. Exposure to the campaign influenced the predictor “perceived control” the most; the two variables "knowledge" and "self-assessed skills" increased significantly with exposure to the campaign. The poster, which was present on site throughout the campaign, was the communication tool most perceived by stand-up paddlers. The variables that best predicted self-reported behaviour were behavioural knowledge, relevance, and self-assessed ability. The results indicate that TPB-predictors tend to be positively influenced by campaign exposure, and they point to a relationship between TPB-predictors and behaviour. However, not all components of the TPB-predictors are statistically significantly improved by campaign exposure, nor do they all significantly influence self-reported behaviour. Nonetheless, the results show that persuasive work improves self-reported ecological behaviour and largely confirm the impact path for persuasion as it has been theoretically proposed.
Management implications:
• A combination of information and behavioural recommendations reduce conflicts between standup paddlers and nature. To improve all TPB-predictors, additional efforts such as persuasion on an emotion-related basis are recommended.
• Due to the low level of organization of the activity and because information is rarely obtained in advance, paddlers are best informed on site or in the beginning of their activity career (e.g., when buying/renting equipment).

To mitigate climate change consequences, a shift to more renewable energy sources is necessary. The traditional forest management form coppice-with-standards features efficient harvesting cycles and could therefore provide a reliant biomass source. Particularly forests close to urban settlements are popular destinations for outdoor recreation. Therefore, for a well-functioning interaction between recreation and forest management, forest visitors' preferences need to be considered. Even though, coppice-with-standards have been studied scientifically from various points of view, including its cultural and ecological values, little focus was put on the perceived visual attractiveness of this management form. Therefore, this study aims to investigate how forest visitors perceive different forest management forms with a focus on coppice-with-standards in the case study area in Zurich, Switzerland by performing qualitative Go-Along interviews and a quantitative forest visitor survey. The statistical analysis revealed that forest visitors have divided opinions on this management form and prefer even-aged high forest as well as continuous forest management. Therefore, in case of an increasing use of coppice-with-standards management for biomass production, implementation in recreational forests needs to be weighed against less frequently visited areas. However, addressing the visitors with well-targeted communication strategies could result in increased understanding and acceptance and could therefore support the implementation process also in recreational forests.

The COVID-19 pandemic forced many nations to implement a certain degree of lockdown measures to contain the spread of the virus. It has been reported that recreational visits to forests and green spaces increased in response to the lockdown. In this study, we investigated the effect of the policy-induced changes in working conditions during the lockdown period, as well as the effect of COVID-19 infection rates, on forest visits throughout Switzerland early in the COVID-19 pandemic. We analyzed data from an online panel survey first conducted one week before the government imposed the lockdown in Switzerland and repeated two weeks after the lockdown began. We use a modeling approach to assess the impact of the home-office and short-time working situation on forest visitation frequency, as well as their effects on the length of visits to the forest. For those who visited the forest both before and during the lockdown, the frequency of forest visits increased during the early lockdown phase considered here, while the duration of visits decreased. According to our model, the opportunity to work from home was a significant driver of the increased frequency of forest visits by this visitor group, while COVID-19 infection rates had no effect on their forest visits.