Search Results (9)

The demand for land monitoring information continues to increase, but the range and diversity of the available products to date have made their integrated use challenging and, at times, counterproductive. There has therefore been a growing need to enhance and harmonise the practice of land monitoring on a pan-European level with the formulation of a more consistent and standardised set of modelling criteria. The outcome has been a paradigm shift away from a “paper map”-based world where features are given a single, fixed label to one where features have a rich characterisation which is more informative, flexible and powerful. The approach allows the characteristics to be dynamic so that, over time, a feature may only change part of its description (i.e., a forest can be felled, but it may remain as forestry if replanted) or it can have multiple descriptors (i.e., a forest may be used for both timber production and recreation). The concept proposed by the authors has evolved since 2008 from first drafts to a comprehensive and powerful tool adopted by the European Union’s Copernicus programme. It provides for the semantic decomposition of existing nomenclatures, as well as supports a descriptive approach to the mapping of all landscape features in a flexible and object-oriented manner. In this way, the key move away from classification towards the characterisation of the Earth’s surface represents a novel and innovate approach to handling complex land surface information more suited to the age of distributed databases, cloud computing and object-oriented data modelling. In this paper, the motivation for and technical approach of the EAGLE concept with its matrix and UML model implementation are explained. This is followed by an update of the latest developments and the presentation of a number of experimental and operational use cases at national and European levels, and it then concludes with thoughts on the future outlook. Full article

Land management decisions and conservation value are heavily influenced by land ownership, land cover, and land use. Our research aimed to examine ownership and land cover distribution, classify landowners based on land cover composition, and evaluate the ability of land cover clustering to be predictive of landowner motivations and behaviors in Maryland, USA. We tabulated a high-resolution land cover map against ownership boundaries, applied hierarchical clustering, and identified five landowner types characterized by a dominant land cover: (1) forest, (2) turf grass, (3) developed, (4) hay/pasture, and (5) crops. We analyzed a landowner survey of 3344 respondents to reveal how clusters predicted recreation, conservation, income, and other motivations. We found a skewed ownership distribution: 95.3% of smaller ownerships (<5 acres) cover 27.3% of the land, while 4.7% of larger owners hold 72.7%. Ownership patterns vary by cover, with forests and wetlands showing bimodal distributions, unimodal for cropland and hay/pasture, and turf grass concentrated in smaller properties. Survey analysis showed that crop, hay/pasture, and forest clusters had income percentages increasing with property size, with crop and hay/pasture accelerating more; conservation interest rose with size for forest and crop, but not hay/pasture; hunting motivation was highest in forest but increased with size similarly across clusters; non-hunting recreation motivation was highest in smaller hay/pasture properties, but decreased with size for all. Although each landowner has unique motivations and goals, our results reveal trends mediated by size of property and land cover that can be used to target outreach and improve conservation outcomes across Maryland’s diverse landscape. Full article

Currently, people are more and more willing to rest in areas of urban greenery or forest areas for relaxation, sports, tourism, or recreation. Nonetheless, the decision for this type of activity is often a thoughtful, planned decision that determines the level of quality of life. The purpose of our study was to determine whether objective indicators of quality of life, such as social, economic, infrastructural, and environmental factors, influence the frequency of visits to urban green areas and forest areas. An online survey was conducted by a professional firm on a group of 1000 people living in and around the Warsaw metropolitan area. The results showed a clear seasonal pattern, with a higher frequency of visits in summer compared to winter. Urban green areas were more likely to be visited than forests. The frequency of visits was influenced by the 11 analysed factors, although not always in all variants. Among these factors were education level, income, distance to urban green areas, and assessment of the quality of greenery at the place of residence. Women and younger age groups were more frequent visitors, especially in summer, while older people and lower-income groups visited less often, especially in winter. The results underscore the importance of integrating green spaces with urban planning to increase accessibility and meet the diverse needs of the population, promoting both physical and mental well-being. Further research should be extended to other metropolitan areas and exploring psychological motivations for visiting natural areas. Full article

Shelter forest systems in the sandy areas mainly comprise farmland shelter forests (FSF) and windbreak and sand-fixing forests (WSF). Through a questionnaire survey of farmers in the oasis–desert transition zone of the windy desert areas of the Hexi Corridor in China, a perception assessment model of farmers’ perception of the status quo and ecosystem service function of shelter forests was constructed, and the willingness of farmers to pay for shelter forest construction and protection was measured. Influencing factors for the farmers’ perception of shelter forests were analyzed by a multiple regression analysis. The results showed problems with pests and diseases all present in FSF and WSF, the destruction of farmland in FSF, and water scarcity in WSF. Farmers evaluated the ecological role of shelter forests as the most obvious in windbreak and sand fixation; intermediate in the four ecological roles of leisure and recreation, agricultural production, a sense of locality, and climate regulation; and the smallest in soil improvement. Nearly 95% of farmers are willing to donate funds to shelter forest construction and protection, and the average amount the farmers were willing to pay was CNY 54.30 per year. Willingness to pay, annual household income, gender, environmental experience, age, and interview area have significant effects on farmers’ perception of shelter forests. Finally, in this paper, we recommend increasing motivation through government financial support and training for farmers to address pests and diseases, water security, and the destruction of farmland in shelter forests to ensure healthy and sustainable growth. Full article

Recreational activity undertaken within urban green spaces (UGS) is an action that could be self-governed and self-regulated by a given person under the pressure of COVID-19. We aimed to identify the factors that induce or reduce the frequency of recreational activity during the COVID-19 pandemic. These factors were explored among two distinct fields: (1) demographic variables and (2) stress-coping strategies. The former is associated with a body of literature on socioeconomic determinants of physical activity. The latter is derived from psychological studies on coping responses to problems. In this paper, we present an interdisciplinary perspective on human recreational activity during the pandemic. We collected information on stress-coping strategies and the patterns of urban green recreation among 376 prime-age Polish adults with different places of residence. We observed that people who use forests daily had higher scores of acceptance as a coping strategy than people using green spaces only on weekends. As choosing acceptance as a coping strategy is typical for those who consider their situation to be irreversible, green recreation may help to acclimate individuals to stressful situations that cannot be easily changed or controlled, which is the case for the pandemic. Moreover, we found that active coping, as well as avoidant coping, were predictors of increased use of green spaces during the pandemic. This conclusion affirms that green recreation as a form of reducing COVID-19-induced stress is associated with the dual nature of coping (active and avoidant). Further research is necessary to better understand of motivation to use urban green recreation, especially when practiced as a method of strengthening mental health. Full article

Even though the COVID-19 pandemic has discouraged travel and people’s movements, the number of visitors to forests near cities which are easily accessible by private vehicle is increasing in Korea. This study aims to investigate the relationship between stress, perceived restorativeness, forest recreation motivation, and the mental well-being of forest users. A survey of forest users was conducted at three recreational forests near Seoul in the summer of 2020. A total of 1196 forest users (613 males and 583 females) participated in the study. As a result of the data analysis, it was found that stress had a negative correlation with perceived restorativeness, forest recreation motivation, and mental well-being; perceived restorativeness had a positive correlation with mental well-being, and forest recreation motivation had a positive correlation with mental well-being. For the relationship between stress and mental well-being, the fitness index that was mediated by the perceived restorativeness and the forest recreation motivation found that the model was statistically suitable. Through this study, a research model was derived that, if the stress of forest users is reduced, direct or indirect effects on perceived restorativeness, forest recreation motivation, and mental well-being are increased. Further, a multi-group analysis found that the effect of perceived restorativeness and forest recreation motivation on the mental well-being of the male group was higher than the effect on the female group. Using this research model to find ways to promote health in forests can be utilized for forest management or forest healing. Full article

Nature proximity contributes to improving many people’s health. In urban areas, how to increase the gaining of health benefits from urban green space (UGS) has gradually become a topic of concern for urban planners and public health practitioners. However, studies that can make causal inferences and evidence from developing countries and societies are still limited, and little has been done to address the issue of equity. Using data gathered in face-to-face surveys from 997 visitors to the Beijing Olympic Forest Park, we applied the instrumental variable approach to analyze park visit benefits to human physical and mental health, and explore ways that can help motivate visits and enhance equitable use. The results show that the overweight had more frequent visits, indicating that people with less-than-ideal health status might feel the urgency in improving their health and choose to engage in more recreation. In this sense, UGS showed a tendency to provide means for a certain group of people to proactively improve health. The study also solidifies the mid-term stress-relieving effect of park recreation that increased with visiting frequency, and found that visits to different types of UGS should all be beneficial, and do not have to be to large green parks. While distance is a decisive factor in encouraging UGS visits, route friendliness was found to have a complementing role, implying that creating routes to UGS that are more conducive to non-motorized travel (walking and cycling) could be seen as an important instrument. Both the incentives to park visitation and stress-relieving effect are more pronounced in elder groups, indicating higher potentials of such an approach in cities with an aging population. In terms of equity, differences in knowledge and income levels associated with use levels indicated inequitable use. To promote inclusiveness, the policy could start by increasing people’s recognition of health benefits derived from UGS recreation through for example publicity programs. The study could bring implications for planning practitioners to leverage health potentials from increased and equitable use of UGS. Limitations of the study includes: (1) given the nature of cross-sectional data, the possibility of two-way causality cannot be ruled out, and (2) the study was conducted in one park and only park visitors were surveyed. In the future, researchers could consider conducting multi-period surveys, and to look at the city level to include all kinds of recreational UGS, and, if possible, to cover all residents. Full article

Charcoal production in Portugal is mostly based on the valorization of woody residues from cork oak and holm oak, the latter being considered a reference feedstock in the market. Nevertheless, since wildfire prevention became a priority in Portugal, after the recent dramatic wildfires, urgent actions are being conducted to reduce the fuel load in the forests, which is increasing the amount of biomass that is available for valorization. Additionally, biomass residues from agriculture, forest management, control of invasive species, partially burnt wood from post-fire recovery actions, and waste wood from storm devastated forests need also to be considered within the national biomass valorization policies. This has motivated the present work on whether the carbonization process can be used to valorize alternative woody biomasses not currently used on a large scale. For this purpose, slow pyrolysis experiments were carried out with ten types of wood, using a fixed bed reactor allowing the controlled heating of large fuel particles at 0.1 to 5 °C/min and final temperatures within 300–450 °C. Apart from an evaluation of the mass balance of the process, emphasis was given to the properties of the resulting charcoals considering its major market in Portugal—barbecue charcoal for both recreational and professional purposes. Full article

The general objective of the study was to assess the main drivers for visiting the forest and the frequency of the visits in the Czech Republic. A nationwide collection of data of the sociological research as part of The Market & Media & Lifestyle Research Project was carried out every year in the Czech Republic under the licensed cooperation with Kantar Media. The project is unique by the large scope of the questions in the questionnaires and by the high number of respondents. A total of 8794 Czech inhabitants aged 12 years and above from all the regions were involved in the survey in 2018. Information about the socioeconomic and demographic characteristics of all the respondents were obtained. In the closed questions, the respondents reported the frequency of the forest visits and its drivers. The main driver for visiting the forest was just to go for a walk or just to enjoy the outdoors, especially during their holidays or weekends, amounting to 79% of the inhabitants. Meditation and relaxation as well as sport in the forest, were also considered as important motives for forest recreation. On the contrary, 95% of the visitors did not practice game hunting, although game has a long tradition in the Czech Republic. Improvement on managing the forest for recreation should focus on participatory forest management to find a consensus between the public and forest stakeholders. Common decisions may help set up forest recreational goals with positive impacts on forest ecosystem services. Full article