Page - 134 - in Biodiversity and Health in the Face of Climate Change

134 7.1 Introduction Biodiversity affects human health and well-being in a variety of ways (Lindley et  al. Chap. 2; Cook et  al. Chap. 11, both in this volume). It supports the ecosystem ser- vices that help to preserve people’s health through regulating clean air and water, and providing food, medicine, shelter, clothing and heat (Mace et  al. 2012; World Health Organization and Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity 2015). Biodiversity also helps to mitigate the negative effects of climate change on human health (see Lindley et  al. Chap. 2, this volume). Yet, biodiversity (with cli- mate change) can also harm human health by discharging pollen and increasing contact with organisms carrying diseases (Vaz et  al. 2017; see also Damialis et  al. Chap. 3 and Müller et  al. Chap. 4 in this volume). In addition to these impacts of biodiversity on physical health, biodiverse environments also affect mental health (see de Vries & Snep, Chap. 8, Marsell et  al.  Chap 9 both in  this volume)  and spiri- tual well-being  (see Irvine et  al.  Chap 10 this volume). Researchers working in this emerging interdisciplinary field use existing frameworks, often from the field of environmental psychology, to explain these associations. The aim of this chapter is to provide an overview of these frameworks to enable theoretical grounding of future biodiversity and mental health and well-being studies. This chapter briefly describes six of the most widely used frameworks that offer perspective on the rela- tionships between biodiverse natural environments and mental  health and well- being, and related empirical research. These frameworks include the Preference Matrix; fractal geometry; the Biophilia Hypothesis; Stress Reduction Theory; Attention Restoration Theory; and the Ecosystem Service Cascade Model. The final section summarises these six frameworks and discusses a way forward. 7.2 Environmental Preference Liking or preferring one thing over another influences behaviours. For example, preference for one environment over another may influence where to have a picnic, which house to buy or whether one supports nature conservation. Environmental preference frameworks examine relationships between physical characteristics of a landscape (e.g. urban vs. natural, water, land use type, open spatial arrangement, spatial definition, tree size, tree density) and psychological judgements of prefer- ence or aesthetic value (Kaplan and Kaplan 1989; Hartig and Evans 1993). Whilst these frameworks do not consider links to health and well-being, they are neverthe- less included here, as preference for a specific environment may indicate the poten- tial that environment could have on well-being (Hartig and Evans 1993; Hartig et  al. 2011). M. R. Marselle