Mapping the Solastalgia Literature: A Scoping Review Study

Abstract

Solastalgia is a relatively new concept for understanding the links between human and ecosystem health, specifically, the cumulative impacts of climatic and environmental change on mental, emotional, and spiritual health. Given the speed and scale of climate change alongside biodiversity loss, pollution, deforestation, unbridled resource extraction, and other environmental challenges, more and more people will experience solastalgia. This study reviewed 15 years of scholarly literature on solastalgia using a scoping review process. Our goal was to advance conceptual clarity, synthesize the literature, and identify priorities for future research. Four specific questions guided the review process: (1) How is solastalgia conceptualized and applied in the literature?; (2) How is solastalgia experienced and measured in the literature?; (3) How is ‘place’ understood in the solastalgia literature?; and (4) Does the current body of literature on solastalgia engage with Indigenous worldviews and experiences? Overall, we find there is a need for additional research employing diverse methodologies, across a greater diversity of people and places, and conducted in collaboration with affected populations and potential knowledge, alongside greater attention to the practical implications and applications of solastalgia research. We also call for continued efforts to advance conceptual clarity and theoretical foundations. Key outcomes of this study include our use of the landscape construct in relation to solastalgia and a call to better understand Indigenous peoples’ lived experiences of landscape transformation and degradation in the context of historical traumas.

Childhood nature connection and constructive hope: A review of research on connecting with nature and coping with environmental loss

“…Although this research primarily involves young people in elementary school through high school, even children as young as 5 worry about ‘the Earth getting too hot’ (Davis, 2010). In research with adults, painful feelings like these have been termed ‘ecological grief’ (Cunsolo & Ellis, 2018), and when distress is due to degradation of one's own home landscape, ‘solastagia’ (Galway, Beery, Jones‐Casey, & Tasala, 2019).…”

Does quality of care entail environmental impact? A blind spot in our knowledge

“…To examine the conceptual relationship between "sustainability" and "quality of care", we carried out a scoping review. This type of literature research is useful for summarizing academic literature, especially when the topic of interest has not been comprehensively reviewed before, [22,23] as is the case here. The review is aimed at finding associations and conflicts between environmental sustainability and commonly-used dimensions of health care quality such as safety, effectiveness, timeliness, efficiency, equity and patient-centredness.…”

Climate change is a major stressor causing poor pregnancy outcomes and child development

“…This set of related emotional concepts has been described as “psychoterratic” or earth-related states 28 , 29 . Solastalgia is the distress caused by the transformation and degradation of one’s home environment, including environmental degradation caused by climate change and associated natural disasters 30 . It can be applied equally to the mental health effects of environmental erosion of the ice pack on Inuit or to drought on western Australian farmers 31 .…”