Forests for Public Health

Over the last decades, there has been a worldwide increasing interest in, and promotion for, the use of natural environments and their multiple functions to mitigate the detrimental aspects of urban living such as stress, heat, lack of physical activity, and high exposure to air and noise pollution, as well as to enhance the liveability and resilience of cities (Fig. X-1) (European Commission, 2015). More recently, concern in regards to evaluating the effects of natural environments on human health and wellbeing has been on the rise (Nieuwenhuijsen et al. 2017). Approaches and concepts have evolved over the years along with advanced interdisciplinary knowledge and applications (Spano et al. 2020). As stated by Escobedo et al. (2019), various authors have adopted a series of metaphors including the nexus between urban forestry (UF), ecosystem services (ES) (MEA, 2005), green infrastructure (GI) (EPA, 2017; Beauchamp and Adamowski 2013; Benedict and McMahon 2002) and, more recently, nature-based solutions (NBS) (European Commission, 2015; Raymond et al. 2017). Considering the above, UF by definition encompasses many aspects of urban ES, GI, and NBS (Miller, 1997). As a discipline, UF aims to maximise the benefits of trees or vegetation in a broad sense (i.e., NBS included) in cities and minimise related costs (i.e., disservices) (Escobedo et al. 2011; Clark et al. 1997). The aim of this chapter is to provide an overview of the state-of-the-art on how UF and other related terms of the nexus (i.e., GI) could promote quality of life, specifically human health in urban settlements. Components of UF and GI range in size, shape and “naturalness” (in terms of mix of blue/green/brown/grey infrastructure or built/natural areas, and “hybrid” systems), depending on the type of NBS adopted, as well as in scale of relevance (Lafortezza et al. 2013). Examples at global level can be found in North America, the European Union (EU) member countries, and China. Thus, what we argue as important, and at the heart of EU research policy, is communicating the relevance of natural and semi-natural systems of vegetation, trees and groups of trees in cities and, consequently, the sets of practices and activities that contribute to improving human wellbeing and quality of life. Furthermore, the recent challenge of global change and increasing temperatures, especially in cities, demands innovative solutions to make the environment in which we live more comfortable and liveable. Numerous studies have shown that UF can contribute in different ways to improve the perception of temperatures and sense of wellbeing (Carrus et al. 2015b; Panno et al. 2017; Lafortezza et al. 2009).