At a time of increasing disconnectedness from nature, scientific interest in the potential health benefits of nature contact has grown. Research in recent decades has yielded substantial evidence, ...but large gaps remain in our understanding.
We propose a research agenda on nature contact and health, identifying principal domains of research and key questions that, if answered, would provide the basis for evidence-based public health interventions.
We identify research questions in seven domains:
) mechanistic biomedical studies;
) exposure science;
) epidemiology of health benefits;
) diversity and equity considerations;
) technological nature;
) economic and policy studies; and
) implementation science.
Nature contact may offer a range of human health benefits. Although much evidence is already available, much remains unknown. A robust research effort, guided by a focus on key unanswered questions, has the potential to yield high-impact, consequential public health insights. https://doi.org/10.1289/EHP1663.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
CEKLJ, DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, OILJ, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK, VSZLJ
A growing body of empirical evidence is revealing the value of nature experience for mental health. With rapid urbanization and declines in human contact with nature globally, crucial decisions must ...be made about how to preserve and enhance opportunities for nature experience. Here, we first provide points of consensus across the natural, social, and health sciences on the impacts of nature experience on cognitive functioning, emotional well-being, and other dimensions of mental health. We then show how ecosystem service assessments can be expanded to include mental health, and provide a heuristic, conceptual model for doing so.
There has been increasing interest in the use of market-based approaches to add value for forestland and to assist with the conservation of natural resources. While markets for ecosystem services ...show potential for increasing forestland value, there is concern that the lack of an integrated program will simply add to the complexity of these services without generating significant public benefits. If not designed properly, these fragmented programs can result in the restoration of many small sites that lack ecological integrity and are unlikely to provide the benefits from protecting larger and more contiguous areas. An integrated approach that combines or bundles services and provides financial incentives for forest landowners may be more effective to achieving broad conservation goals, including enhancing fish and wildlife habitat, improving watershed health, sequestering carbon to mitigate climate change, and providing other ecosystem services at an ecologically relevant scale. We outline some of the policy and regulatory frameworks for some of the emerging markets for ecosystem services in the United States, and discuss the role that different regulatory agencies play for each of these services. We then assess the potential benefits for bundling different ecosystem services such as water quality, wetlands, species conservation, and carbon and describe an integrated accounting protocol for combining these services.
► Current ecosystem services markets for wetlands, water and carbon are disconnected. ► Bundling of ecosystem services provides an improved method for integrating markets. ► We describe a protocols and standards process for integrating different services. ► Ecosystem services markets increase forestland value and help conserve critical services.
Over the last five years, Clean Water Services developed and implemented a program to offset thermal load discharged from its wastewater facilities to the Tualatin River by planting trees to shade ...streams and augmenting summertime instream flows. The program has overcome challenges facing many of the nation's water quality trading programs to not only gain consensus on the frameworks needed to authorize trading, but also provide a broad range of ecosystem services. This paper compares the Tualatin case study with some of the commonly cited factors of successful trading programs. PUBLICATION ABSTRACT
This article takes a first step toward analyzing the characteristics of a cross-policy, state-wide collaborative system. Specifically, using data from the Atlas of Collaboration project, we offer a ...big-picture analysis of how over 200 externally directed collaborative governance regimes (CGRs) are operationalized in a state-level collaborative system consisting of 13 collaborative platforms operating across five policy areas (economic development, education, health, natural resources, public safety) in Oregon. We focus on three attributes—geographic scope, collaborative size, and collaborative characteristics—aggregated at the system level across CGRs, as well as across collaborative platforms and policy areas. The descriptive findings reveal that collaborative efforts are geographically dispersed across the state, involve thousands of participants representing organizations from the public, private, and nonprofit sectors, and vary across multiple characteristics, such as organizational form, lead organization, funding model, structural roles, staffing, and extent of face-to-face dialogue. These findings lay the groundwork for future theoretical development and empirical research.
Cochran, Bobby and Charles Logue, 2011. A Watershed Approach to Improve Water Quality: Case Study of Clean Water Services’ Tualatin River Program. Journal of the American Water Resources Association ...(JAWRA) 47(1):29‐38. DOI: 10.1111/j.1752‐1688.2010.00491.x
: Over the last five years, Clean Water Services developed and implemented a program to offset thermal load discharged from its wastewater facilities to the Tualatin River by planting trees to shade streams and augmenting summertime instream flows. The program has overcome challenges facing many of the nation’s water quality trading programs to not only gain consensus on the frameworks needed to authorize trading, but also provide a broad range of ecosystem services. This paper compares the Tualatin case study with some of the commonly cited factors of successful trading programs.
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