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20.6.3.2 Management Recommendations to Improve the Use of Urban
Green Spaces
28. Utilising physical interventions: Access to a green space does not necessarily
result in its use. Physical design and management can improve the biodiversity
quality and aid the use of green spaces. Physical interventions to facilitate use
involves considering the needs of different users in the local community as well
as long-term health, social and environmental effects. Management plans for
green spaces should ensure these spaces are maintained in order to avoid per-
ceptions of neglect, as overgrowth and/or broken benches/play structures/rub-
bish can increase fear of crime and reduce use.
29. Employing social interventions: To further encourage use, promotion and mar-
keting events should be used in combination with physical interventions. It is
especially important to target interventions to individuals in socially-deprived
neighbourhoods. Practitioners should use nature-based social-prescribing
interventions, such as health walks in forests, conservation volunteering or
therapeutic gardens, to encourage use of and contact with biodiverse green
spaces.
30. Monitoring impact: In order to develop evidence of impact and economic
value, it is important to implement robust monitoring and evaluation of the
effect of nature-based solutions on climate change adaptation, human health
and well- being, and biodiversity. This will help to advance both management
and policy in the interconnected field of biodiversity, health and climate
change.
20.7 Outlook
Facing global challenges, we need concerted action to foster human health and
biodiversity, the foundation of life. It is time to act now and to urgently address
increasing health issues and to harness NBS to health promotion. In a changing
climate the importance for nature-based solutions for human health will increase.
In the long run modern combinations of nature-based solutions with technical solu-
tions will be the cheaper alternative in comparison with choosing technical solu-
tions on their own. Nature-based solutions have additional advantages in that they
can pose win- win- win solutions for biodiversity, human health and adaptation to
climate change, and their management actions are more easily reversible and
adaptable.
In international policy, practice and research, the issue of biodiversity and human
health, with a link to climate change as a major stressor for both, is high on the
agenda. Research is focusing attention on this topic with new transdisciplinary
research programmes. Since climate change will exacerbate societal problems with
respect to health, policy needs to act now to put scientific evidence into real action.
We hope this volume provides a critical overview and evaluation of the interlink-
M. R. Marselle et al.
Biodiversity and Health in the Face of Climate Change
- Title
- Biodiversity and Health in the Face of Climate Change
- Authors
- Melissa Marselle
- Jutta Stadler
- Horst Korn
- Katherine Irvine
- Aletta Bonn
- Publisher
- Springer Open
- Date
- 2019
- Language
- English
- License
- CC BY 4.0
- ISBN
- 978-3-030-02318-8
- Size
- 15.5 x 24.0 cm
- Pages
- 508
- Keywords
- Environment, Environmental health, Applied ecology, Climate change, Biodiversity, Public health, Regional planning, Urban planning
- Categories
- Naturwissenschaften Umwelt und Klima