Dr. Silvia Tobias

We present forecasts of land-use/land-cover (LULC) change for Switzerland for three time-steps in the 21^st century under the representative concentration pathways 4.5 and 8.5, and at 100-m spatial and 14-class thematic resolution. We modelled the spatial suitability for each LULC class with a neural network (NN) using > 200 predictors and accounting for climate and policy changes. We improved model performance by using a data augmentation algorithm that synthetically increased the number of cells of underrepresented classes, resulting in an overall quantity disagreement of 0.053 and allocation disagreement of 0.15, which indicate good prediction accuracy. These class-specific spatial suitability maps outputted by the NN were then merged in a single LULC map per time-step using the CLUE-S algorithm, accounting for LULC demand for the future and a set of LULC transition rules. As the first LULC forecast for Switzerland at a thematic resolution comparable to available LULC maps for the past, this product lends itself to applications in land-use planning, resource management, ecological and hydraulic modelling, habitat restoration and conservation.

Population growth and increasing urbanization leads to growing exposure to traffic noise and a decline in accessible green spaces that could promote restoration from noise-induced stress. The objective of this virtual reality laboratory study was to investigate the effect chains of noise and cognitive demand on the build-up of short-term stress, and subsequent restoration in either a natural green or urban built quiet space. Participants were first exposed to road traffic noise of different sound pressure levels (L_Aeq of 35, 55, or 75 dB), being randomly assigned to passive listening (low cognitive demand) or concurrently performing cognitively demanding tasks (high demand). The stress phase revealed higher levels of perceived stress as well as tonic skin conductance for the high demand over the low demand group, independent of noise exposure. Increasing noise exposure was associated with elevated noise annoyance ratings and lower self-assessed wellbeing. In the subsequent restoration phase, all measures of perceived restoration indicated a clear advantage for green over non-green spaces. Further, participants from the high-demand group who were immersed in the green restorative space displayed significantly lower skin conductance levels than those in the urban built spaces. The findings suggest that exposure to natural green spaces is beneficial for psychological as well as physiological restoration from short-term stress induced by noise and cognitive demand. Our study underlines the important beneficial role of urban green spaces, particularly in densely populated, noisy urban environments.

Background: Stress is a widespread phenomenon and reality of everyday life, entailing negative consequences for physical and psychological wellbeing. Previous studies have indicated that exposure to greenspaces and nature-based interventions are promising approaches to reducing stress and promoting restoration. However, an increasing percentage of the population lives in urban regions with limited opportunities to spend time in greenspaces. In addition, urban settings typically feature increased levels of noise, which represents a major environmental stressor. Although various studies have compared the effects of exposure to greenspaces versus urban built environments, evidence of the effects of noise in this context is very limited. Psychophysiological benefits of exposure to greenspaces compared to urban built environments reported in earlier studies might be less (or at least not only) due to features of the greenspaces than to additional stressors, such as road traffic noise in the urban built environment. Hence, differences in the effects attributed to greenness in previous studies may also be due to potentially detrimental noise effects in comparison settings. This paper reports the study protocol for a randomized, controlled intervention study comparing the effects of walking in forest versus urban built environments, taking road traffic noise exposure during walks in the respective settings into account.
Methods: The protocol envisages a field study employing a pretest–posttest design to compare the effects of 30-min walks in urban built environments and forests with different road traffic noise levels. Assessments will consist of self-reported measures, physiological data (salivary cortisol and skin conductance), an attention test, and noise, as well as greenness measurements. The outcomes will be restoration, stress, positive and negative affect, attention, rumination, and nature connectedness.
Discussion: The results will inform about the restorative effect of walking in general, of exposure to different types of environments, and to different noise levels in these sites. The study will provide insights into the benefits of walking and nature-based interventions, taking into account the potential detrimental effects of noise exposure. It will thus facilitate a better understanding of low-threshold interventions to prevent stress and foster wellbeing.

Les changements climatiques auront inévitablement un impact sur nos paysages et sur leur qualité. Cela nous concerne toutes et tous. Mais comment faire comprendre cela au grand public?

Der Klimawandel wird die Landschaften verändern und damit auch ihre Funktionen und Leistungen für den Menschen. Die Wissenschaft warnt schon seit geraumer Zeit vor den Folgen des Klimawandels, doch das Bewusstsein hierfür ist in der breiten Öffentlichkeit und Politik noch nicht ausgeprägt. Ein aktuelles Forschungsprojekt nutzt Bilder und Erzählungen zur Sensibilisierung für die Auswirkungen des Klimawandels auf die Landschaften und den Handlungsspielraum, den Politik und Gesellschaft bei der Gestaltung der Landschaften haben.

Urban areas are continuously growing in population and become denser in buildings to limit expansion of settlements. The latter often entails a loss of green spaces and increasing noise pollution, particularly from road traffic. Exposure to road traffic noise can lead to annoyance, which in turn may trigger stress-related diseases and negatively impact quality of life. Recently, green spaces in residential areas came into focus as a potential measure to reduce negative health impacts, including noise annoyance. Within the research project RESTORE (Restorative potential of green spaces in noise-polluted environments), an extended cross-sectional field study in the city of Zurich, is conducted to assess the relation between road traffic noise, residential greenery, noise annoyance, self-reported and physiological stress. Participants are selected from specific study sites within Zurich based on the areas' characteristics (noise exposure, residential green). In this contribution, we present first results on the association of noise annoyance with the exposure to road traffic noise and residential green.

Urban areas are continuously growing, and densification is a frequent strategy to limit urban expansion. This generally entails a loss of green spaces (GSs) and an increase in noise pollution, which has negative effects on health. Within the research project RESTORE (Restorative potential of green spaces in noise-polluted environments), an extended cross-sectional field study in the city of Zurich, Switzerland, is conducted. The aim is to assess the relationship between noise annoyance and stress (self-perceived and physiological) as well as their association with road traffic noise and GSs. A representative stratified sample of participants from more than 5000 inhabitants will be contacted to complete an online survey. In addition to the self-reported stress identified by the questionnaire, hair cortisol and cortisone probes from a subsample of participants will be obtained to determine physiological stress. Participants are selected according to their dwelling location using a spatial analysis to determine exposure to different road traffic noise levels and access to GSs. Further, characteristics of individuals as well as acoustical and non-acoustical attributes of GSs are accounted for. This paper presents the study protocol and reports the first results of a pilot study to test the feasibility of the protocol.

Soils provide vital functions and ecosystem services that we all depend on, but landuse changes and global climate change threaten many of those functions and services. Road projects have a vital responsibility in safeguarding and supporting European soils through informed and responsible land-take, reduced soil sealing, reduced soil compaction during construction, and control of potentially contaminated soils. This calls for methods to assess the impact of road projects and for mitigating measures for offsetting, compensating, and minimising the environmental impacts on soil resources. [...]

Increased exposure of humans to noise is one problem of ongoing urbanization, leading to a range of adverse health impacts. Green spaces have come into focus as a potential means to mitigate such negative effects. As part of the project RESTORE (Restorative potential of green spaces in noise-polluted environments), this laboratory study investigates pathways of (a) stress buildup from noise exposure/cognitive load and (b) stress reduction in recreational areas. During a stress phase, participants were exposed to road traffic noise scenarios of different sound pressure levels (L_Aeq of 35 dB, 55 dB, 75 dB). Half of the participants listened to the sound situations for 10 minutes attentively, while the other half completed different cognitive tasks. Afterwards, in the restoration phase, participants were audio-visually immersed in a VR environment for 20 minutes. Half of the participants experienced a quiet natural green space, the other an urban non-green space with faint urban sounds of comparable level. Results show that perceived stress increased with cognitive load and - to a lesser extent - with L_Aeq. The beneficial effect of natural green was demonstrated by several measures of perceived restoration, all pointing towards a significantly higher psychological recovery in green spaces than built urban areas.

Green spaces and natural environments are essential for quality of life, as they influence health behaviours and outcomes positively. The quantification of "greenness" observable from the human perspective is of great interest, especially in urban environments where built-up areas and infill are expanding. In this paper, we present a method based on airborne laser scanning (ALS) point clouds that makes it possible to simulate a space observed from the human perspective and to quantify the surrounding vegetation. The method can be applied over various spatial scales, in urban, suburban and rural regions. We employed this new method to analyse a set of specific locations in Switzerland that are important for people to recover from everyday stress. The greenness quantification can be used to compare the perceived restorative quality of landscape characteristics with physical landscape qualities. Our approach provides a viable methodological solution for spatial planning and large-scale socio-ecological studies on the influence of natural and green spaces on health and wellbeing, and we recommend that it be applied in the natural landscape and in urban areas.

Grünflächen und naturnahe Flächen sind für die Lebensqualität von wesentlicher Bedeutung, da sie sich positiv auf die Gesundheit und das Wohlbefinden auswirken. In der Schweiz leben heute ungefähr drei Viertel der Einwohner in Städten und Agglomerationen, daher ist die Qualität und Zugänglichkeit von Grün- und Naturräumen (GNR) von grossem Interesse. In dieser Studie haben wir Orte analysiert, an denen sich die Schweizer Bevölkerung vom Stress im Alltag erholt. Das ganzheitliche GIS-basierte Konzept zur Beschreibung dieser Orte folgt einem dreistufigen Top-Down-Ansatz und bezieht sich auf verschiedene Massstäbe, Aspekte und Details der Beschreibung. Die vorliegende Studie befasst sich ausschliesslich mit der detailliertesten Ebene. Auf der Grundlage von Airborne Laserscanning (ALS)-Punktwolken haben wir eine Methode entwickelt, um den Raum aus der menschlichen Perspektive zu simulieren und die sichtbare nahegelegene Vegetation zu quantifizieren. Dieser Beitrag gibt einen Überblick über die entwickelte Methode und eine Erläuterung der Interpretation der Ergebnisse und zeigt Anwendungsmöglichkeiten auf.

Green spaces and natural environments are essential for quality of life as they have a positive impact on health and well-being. In Switzerland, about three quarters of the population now live in cities and agglomerations, so the quality and accessibility of green and natural spaces (GNS) is of great interest there. In this study, we analysed places where the Swiss population recovers from stress in everyday life. The holistic GIS-based concept for describing these places follows a three-level top-down approach and refers to different scales, aspects and details of the description. The present study deals exclusively with the most detailed level. Based on airborne laser scanning (ALS) point clouds, we have developed an effective method to simulate the space from a human perspective and quantify the visible nearby vegetation. This paper gives an overview of the developed method and a detailed explanation of the interpretation of the results, and shows its possible applications.

Le paysage, dans sa diversité, est une ressource importante pour la Suisse et influence fortement la qualité de vie de l’être humain. Pourtant, les modifications possibles des paysages dues au changement climatique, et par conséquent les impacts sur l’humain, n’ont guère été abordées jusqu’à présent. Ce projet a développé et représenté différents scénarios sur la manière dont le changement climatique pourrait affecter le paysage. Son objectif était de sensibiliser la société aux effets du changement climatique sur le paysage. La démarche assume un réchauffement climatique relativement important qui représente des risques élevés pour l’homme et l’environnement. Le scénario choisi prévoit une augmentation moyenne de la température d’environ 4 °C par rapport à la température moyenne entre 1981 et 2010. Il représente donc des situations dans lesquelles les objectifs de l’accord de Paris sur le climat de 2015 ne sont pas atteints. [...]

Landschaft ist in ihrer Vielfalt eine wichtige Ressource der Schweiz und eng verbunden mit einer guten Lebensqualität. Dennoch wurden die möglichen Veränderungen von Landschaften durch den Klimawandel bislang kaum thematisiert. Dieses Projekt hat Szenarien dazu entwickelt und visualisiert, wie sich der Klimawandel auf die Landschaft auswirken könnte. Das Ziel des Projekts war die Sensibilisierung der Gesellschaft für die Auswirkungen des Klimawandels auf die Landschaft. Es wurde eine relativ starke Klimaerwärmung angenommen, die entsprechend hohe Risiken für den Menschen und die Umwelt birgt. Die Szenarien gehen von einem mittleren Temperaturanstieg von etwa 4 °C gegenüber der Durchschnittstemperatur im Zeitraum von 1981 bis 2010 aus. Sie bilden also Zustände ab, bei denen die Ziele des Pariser Klimaschutzabkommens von 2015 nicht erreicht worden sind. [...]

Urban green spaces with healthy vegetation play a key role in improving the quality of life in cities. However, urban soils, the basis of the urban greenery, are under strong anthropogenic influence and can considerably differ from natural soils. In this study, we observed short-term greening and browning of lawns during one vegetation period in urban parks of Geneva (Switzerland). We related the temporal trajectory of seasonal Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) (8 days median) as a proxy of vegetation condition at different test sites to the physical soil properties (soil depth, coarse material, bulk density, conditioned air and water content) and Soil Organic Carbon (SOC). Strong drops of NDVI during dry periods in summer were related to shallow soil depths (<40 cm) and a high amount of coarse material (>10%) as well as lower SOC. Bulk density of the fine earth and the soil structure quality (expressed by air and water content of soil cores conditioned at a soil water potential of -100 hPa) had a significant influence on grass growth in spring but not in summer. Dense soils with conditioned air content closer to the trigger value of degraded soil structure resulted in lower NDVI values in spring. Our approach of using Earth Observation (EO) data for observing short-term greening and browning patterns, in this case the rise and decline of NDVI values, revealed that the role of the soil properties changed with the season. This approach may contribute to digital soil mapping and the assessment of soil ecosystem services in urban contexts. Urban planners are advised to save natural soils from over-building and keep them for green spaces. If soil has to be restored to create new green spaces, it should be deep and should not contain much coarse material, even for grassy vegetation.

Urban areas are constantly growing, and densification is a common strategy to limit settlement expansion. However, this leads to loss of green spaces (GSs) and increasing noise pollution, which is detrimental to public health. Within a research project that aims at elucidating the stress-easing potential of green spaces in noise-polluted environments and the mediating and/or moderating role of annoyance, an extended cross-sectional field study will be performed in the city of Zurich, Switzerland. In total, 5000 participants will be contacted in three waves, during which an online survey will be carried out followed by a visit to a subsample at home to collect hair cortisol probes. Participants of this study were selected according to the characteristics of their residences (stratified by accessibility to GSs and noise exposure). Further, traits of individuals in addition to acoustic and non-acoustic attributes of GSs are accounted. Thus, the association of noise annoyance, perceived stress and long-term physiological stress responses among residents exposed to different road traffic noise levels and with different grades of access to GSs are studied. In this contribution, the study protocol and first results of a pilot study with 256 participants will be shown.

Soil is defined as a biologically active mixture of organic matter, minerals, liquids, and gases built up from horizons consisting of different proportions of these components. It is the result of a long weathering process driven by biological, climatic, geological and topographic influences. A natural soil has four main functions: the habitat function, the production function, the regulation function and the archive function. Road construction entails soil sealing, compaction, pollution, and disposal of surplus material which compromise the soil functions with direct and indirect negative impact on people and their environment. Damage on soil must be avoided, mitigated, or compensated for. Therefore, soil has to be considered already in the road planning phase and soil protection measures must be consistently implemented in all phases of road construction projects. Soil protection measures are described in various directives and guidelines published by the European Union, several countries of Europe as well as scientific and professional associations of different industrial sectors. In this work package, we assess guidelines, soil information and best-practice examples of soil protection that relate to the planning and construction phase of a road construction project. [...]

Soil is defined as a biologically active mixture of organic matter, minerals, liquids, and gases built up from horizons consisting of different proportions of these components. It is the result of a long weathering process driven by biological, climatic, geological and topographic influences. Road construction entails soil sealing, compaction, pollution, and disposal of surplus material which compromise the soil functions with direct and indirect negative impact on people and their environment. Damage on soil must be avoided, mitigated, or compensated for. Therefore, we assessed guidelines, soil information and best-practice examples of soil protection that relate to the planning and construction phase of a road construction project in the previous work package 4 of the RoadSoil project (Deliverable 4.1, 4.2). We concluded that although a considerable number of guidelines and other information is available in the investigated countries, there are still difficulties in implementation. For this reason, we suggested to further investigate which measures are known and implemented among European experts in the field of soil protection and road construction. Further, to what extent these measures are considered effective and feasible by the experts. And finally, which problems prevent the implementation and what are potential solutions to solve them. [...]