Use pattern of forest resources for people has changed from outdoor recreational to human health promotion; about 12.8 million people now visit recreation forests every year and about 61% of the total populations are aware of the effectiveness of forest healing. Background to forest healing was the strengthening scientific evidence of the effectiveness of forest healing through investment in research and development and conducting the national plans, the revision of laws in relation to forest healing policy. Forest healing policy has diverse meanings for forest owners, local residents, the public, and the government. Forest healing policy has certain limitations; healing forest construct for urban areas, more scientific evidences for forest healing effectiveness, business model for private healing forest.

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Much research has been conducted on user behavior by taking surveys and interviews to plan the green space effectively. However, there is a limitation in understanding detailed user characteristics such as personalities and values. This study applied the Persona-based Scenario Method (PSM) to Hongneung Experimental Forest to understand the detailed needs and behaviors of the users in the forest recreation area. The PSM is a user experience modeling technique, which tries to understand the users by describing the type of users as real people. This study 1) extracts the factors of visitor recreation activities in Hongneung Experimental Forest based on the results of the survey, 2) develops user personas based on the results of survey and comes up with activity factors, and 3) designs user scenarios. As a result of applying the PSM, 64 factors of visitor activities were derived from the observation survey in 14 sites of Hongneung Experimental Forest and 25 key factors of visitor activities were chosen through observer's brainstorming. Second, three types of personas were developed considering the key factors and the results of user characteristics with quantitative and qualitative analysis. Lastly, context scenarios were designed by applying the key factors of visitor recreation activities to the persona model. We identified the design problems of the space and design requirements through the scenarios. This study has significance in that it takes an approach from the user perspective and was applied to the forest recreation area, which was mainly used in product design. The developed personas could be used for deriving design elements and setting the direction for planning considering detailed needs, behaviors and characteristics of users.

Recently, the importance and effectiveness of neighborhood forests have been increasing in relation to the quality of life of urban residents. However, there are very few domestic studies that analyzed the correlation between visit characteristics and life satisfaction. Therefore, the study aims to understand how people use the forest for recreation and determine how visit characteristics in neighborhood forests affect individual life satisfaction(ILS). A nationwide survey (N=2,624) was conducted on visit frequency, proximity to forest, means of transportation, forest activities, and life satisfaction. To measure ILS, we used the three factors (personal, relative, collective) of COMOSWB (Concise Measure of Subjective Well-being) developed by Seo et al.(2011). The analysis shows that people usually visit the forest located within the distance of 10-30 minutes from their homes 1-2 times a month on foot for hiking/walking (forest bathing). In particular, the older visitors(over 60s) tend to visit the forest more often than the younger ones (20s). Furthermore, more frequent visitors are more likely to live near the forest. As a result of analyzing the correlation between visit characteristics and ILS by controlling demographic variables, it was found that 'visit frequency' had a positive effect on ILS, and 'proximity to the forest' did not have a statistically significant effect on ILS. In other words, residents who live near the forests are more likely to be satisfied with their lives by visiting frequently. The significance of the study is that it statistically determined that visit frequency is a key factor for ILS. Future studies should take into account the various qualitative factors of forest visit such as vegetation, quantity and types of forest, which will contribute to setting the direction for urban forest development and management.

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