Effects of biodiversity and environment-related attitude on perception of urban green space

Abstract

Green space in cities contributes to the quality of life for city dwellers, e.g., by increasing the opportunity for recreation. However, perception of urban green space is influenced by multiple factors. We investigated effects of biodiversity and environment-related attitudes on visual and auditory perceptions of urban green space. Field measurements of biodiversity were conducted in six sites across an urban gradient in Gothenburg, Sweden, and three categories of biodiversity-high, medium, low-were established. Households were sent a survey on aesthetic perception of urban green space, sound perception and the importance of trees and plants for the perception of bird species. Each respondent focused on the site that was located nearby. The environment-related attitudes comprised BNature-oriented^and BUrban-oriented^persons and were based on participants' own attitude estimations. It was shown that participants' Bsubjective^aesthetic and sound-related perception of urban greenery were in line with the Bobjectively^measured subdivisions of high, medium and low biodiversity. So also were their estimations of the importance of trees and plants for perception of bird species in urban greenery, although differing only between high and medium/ low biodiversity conditions. Persons rating themselves as highly nature-oriented were shown to give higher scores to urban green space aesthetics and to value greenery-related sounds higher, and to attach greater importance to trees and plants in their perception of bird species in urban greenery, than less nature-oriented persons. Highly urban-oriented persons compared to less urban-oriented persons did the same, but only regarding urban greenery-related aesthetics and sounds of nature. We conclude that environment-related attitudes influence perceptions of green space. Moreover, our findings support the idea that biodiversity per se also influences perceptions; people value green space significantly more with high than with low measured biodiversity. Urban planning needs to provide city inhabitants with green spaces that are species-rich, lush, varied and rich with natural sounds.

The Personal Viewpoint on the Meaning of Tranquility Affects the Appraisal of the Urban Park Soundscape

“…Similarly, people that associate tranquility to social sounds could be expected to notice human voices more often. Recently, it was observed that environment-related attitudes influence perceptions of green space, in particular that nature-oriented attitude leads to valuing natural sounds more highly [19]. This result could support our first hypothesis, yet the questions about natural sounds used in this study were more oriented towards valuation than towards observation.…”

Evaluation of natural sounds in urban greenery: potential impact for urban nature preservation

“…urban woodlands) were linked to more positive nature-sound-related evaluations and higher importance for experiencing bird songs than in areas with perceived low naturalness (parks, allotments and lawns). It should be noted, however, that this difference partly could be influenced by the environment-related attitudes of people living nearby our study areas [30]. Independently of the type of naturalness in the urban green areas, women evaluated natural sounds and bird song higher than men did.…”

“…The measure comprised five statements, with a Cronbach's α of 0.81; indicating high reliability: ‘Sounds of nature give me a stronger perception of the site’; ‘Rustling trees make me feel calm’; ‘Bird song in the area makes me feel calm’; ‘Human voices make me feel calm’; and ‘Noise from the city and traffic interferes with my perception of the area’ (see also [24] and [30]).…”

Urban freshwaters, biodiversity, and human health and well‐being: Setting an interdisciplinary research agenda

“…As has been suggested elsewhere there is often a mismatch between people's perception of, and actual, species richness (Dallimer et al, 2012;Hassall, 2014) (Figure 1), but there is increasing evidence that in some settings, peoples subjective perceptions of species diversity may reflect objective measures (Gunnarsson, Knez, Hedblom, & Sang, 2017). So, while people may not explicitly recognize biological diversity, there are aspects of it that may be appreciated in terms of well-being gains.…”