The purpose of this study is to investigate the perceived benefits of community gardening. A garden colony is a collection of adjacent plots of land primarily for the purpose of gardening. The methodology of this research consists of observations, interviews, questionnaires, and focus group. As a result of this research we found that gardening is a natural and safe way to meet the lifelong demands for a healthy life. We found specific mental and physical benefits as a result of this community gardening. We encourage communities to allow people to buy plots of land away from their homes to promote this healthy activity. The garden colony provides a place for individual renewal and restoration; this urban oasis offers a way to maintain and promote lifelong healthy living, and they are an important contribution to one’s life by adding a sense of meaning and purpose.

The landscape image is the bridge of communication between people and forests, and the cut point of the supply-side reform of forest tourism products. The research collected 140 copies in total of forest landscape image drawings from non-art-major graduate students by randomly sampling during April and May, 2018, and constructed the landscape image conceptual model of forest by utilizing the landscape image sketching technique. The results showed that (1) In regard to linguistic knowledge, the natural landscape elements for instance, herbaceous plants, terrains, creatures, water and sky, and the broad-leaf forest objectively reflected not only the real forest landscape and the local native vegetation, but the variation of forest species with little attention. (2) On the perspective of spatial view, the sideways view indicated that graduate students preferred to watch forests at a moderate distance externally and few looked at forests internally. (3) In the view of self-orientation, the objective landscape indicated that graduate students preferred to demonstrate forest landscapes, they did not realize to interact with the environment. (4) On the aspect of social meaning, the scenic view and forest structure stated that graduate students preferred rural forest landscapes, not significantly for other special interests for forest. In conclusions, (1) the forest is thought to be a feature of people's life world and of rural scenes around homes, not an objective perception of the forest. (2) The forest is regarded as an important habitat for animals and a limited resource for people's life, production and recreation needs, into which people will go only to meet such needs. (3) The natural values of forests, like the ecology and aesthetics, etc. get more attention, while the social values of forests, like the life, production and culture receives rather low attention.

Human disturbance, such as trampling, is an integral component of global change, yet we lack a comprehensive understanding of its effects on alpine ecosystems. Many alpine systems are seeing a rapid increase in recreation, and in understudied regions, such as the Coast Mountains of British Columbia, disturbance impacts on alpine plants remain unclear. We surveyed disturbed (trail-side) and undisturbed (off-trail) transects along elevational gradients of popular hiking trails in the T’aḵ’t’aḵ’múy̓in tl’a In̓inyáx̱a7n region (Garibaldi Provincial Park), Canada, focusing on dominant shrubs (Phyllodoce empetriformis, Cassiope mertensiana, Vaccinium ovalifolium) and graminoids (Carex spp). We used a hierarchical Bayesian framework to test for disturbance by elevation effects on total plant percent cover, maximum plant height and diameter (growth proxies), and buds, flowers, and fruits (reproduction proxies). We found that trampling reduces plant cover and impacts all species, but that effects vary by species and trait, and disturbance effects only vary with elevation for one species’ trait. Growth traits are more sensitive to trampling than reproductive traits, which may lead to differential impacts on population persistence and species level fitness outcomes. Our study highlights that disturbance responses are species-specific, and this knowledge can help land managers minimize disturbance impacts on sensitive vegetation types.

Rajshahi, blessed by the geographical advantage provided by the river Padma, is a beautiful and one of the cleanest cities in Bangladesh. It presents a spectacular image and stunning sight to its residents. But Rapid urbanization created immense pressure on the infrastructures and cityscape by rescinding most of the natural assets and scenic beauty it possessed historically. The growing pressure of population influx accompanied by unplanned urbanization threatens the survival of its waterbodies, wetlands, and greeneries, which many other contemporary cities strive to achieve with hard-hearted planning measures. Moreover, the city suffers from inadequate provision of quality outdoor recreational facilities. Yet because of the verdant resources, it still can set an example of becoming green and fluid landscape. There are scopes to connect the city people to the urban landscape and blue-green infrastructures by applying proper planning and urban design techniques. For example, it can explore the potential and scope of a water-based transportation system to create outdoor recreation space for city dwellers as well as a transport mode in the city. This SECTION discusses the prospects and potential of enhancing recreational aspects of Circular Inland Waterways. It also analyzes the benefits of a network of waterways well-connected and integrated with the existing conventional transportation system to reduce pressure on land transport and promote a sustainable system. This research was conducted in two phases each involving a distinct approach. The first one was a macroscopic approach to probe the potential of the water transport system in Rajshahi city. The required data on traffic volume, traffic growth rate, roads and existing waterbodies were collected, and GIS and Remote Sensing tools were used to find the scope of waterway transport around Rajshahi City. In the second approach, a detailed design was proposed for a potential circular waterway network in the city. Results indicate that there is a huge prospect for introducing a circular waterway transport system around Rajshahi city to create a place of fluid landscape and minimize the pressure on the existing land transportation system.

This data descriptor summarizes the process applied to identify, screen, select and gather data from the content of 142 peer-reviewed papers/sources that report on the sources and impacts of recreational disturbance on coastal avifauna. While populations of resident and migratory coastal avifauna are under threat and diminishing rapidly across the planet, and particularly in association with Asian flyways, many governments are leveraging booming global demand for coastal recreation and tourism in order to deliver economic development to regional communities. The summary data shared via this data description was extracted from papers collected in a systematic literature review that was designed to explore the global literature on the recreational disturbance of coastal avifauna in order to elucidate the state of the global knowledge regarding this issue and to identify management strategies that could be applied at tropical Asian destinations to minimize the impacts of recreational disturbance and thus enhance the ecological sustainability of coastal recreation and tourism across the region. The data shared via the Excel worksheet associated with this data descriptor was extracted from peer-reviewed articles published in English between 1 January 2000 and the 31 December 2018 with the full text of the article available online. These articles were found by searching several online indexing several databases including Scopus, Web of Science, ProQuest and Google Scholar.

Prescribed burning and other active forest management treatments have been proven to be essential for maintaining suitable habitat conditions for many wildlife species, including the federally endangered red-cockaded woodpecker (RCW). This study examines the perception of forest management treatments of recreation users participating in various activities (hunting, hiking/backpacking, camping, off-highway vehicle riding, and canoeing/kayaking) in terms of scenic beauty and recreation satisfaction. We used photographic images to capture various forest management treatments of different intensity levels and times after treatments, and assessed users’ perception of scenic beauty and recreation satisfaction. Results indicated variation among users participating in different recreation activities, but that good quality RCW habitat offered both higher scenic beauty and higher recreation satisfaction than poor quality habitat for most user groups. Finally, recreation satisfaction was statistically equal to perceived scenic beauty from both good and poor-quality RCW habitats for most of the user groups, thus suggesting the importance of scenic beauty on forest sites in determining recreation users’ attainment of visit satisfaction. Findings conclude that forest sites developed as good quality RCW habitat in the present state also offer quality experience to recreation users, thus supporting multi-objective forestry practices in public forests.

The COVID-19 pandemic drew public attention back to the living conditions related to housing, access to green areas in close neighbourhood and nearby recreation. Several studies confirm that visiting green spaces improved the health and wellbeing in times of crisis. This representative study for the metropolitan area of Vienna, Austria’s capital, confirms the high relevance of contact with nature, particularly for citizens to cope with the negative consequences and perceived stress, anxiety, nervousness and many other negative symptoms experienced during the health crisis. It highlights the importance of nearby smaller but also medium to large scale green areas in cities for health and wellbeing of the population. Moreover, it specifically adds novel insights on age effects in use and perception of urban green spaces during COVID-19 pandemic. The online panel survey (n=1012) was conducted in summer 2021. In order to obtain a representative sample reflective of the population’s characteristics, a (stratified) random sample was selected by applying the quota method. The objective was to obtain a sample which represented gender, age and regional distribution of the population of the City of Vienna as well as the immediately surrounding local communities. Interestingly, particularly young people spent more time outside in green areas during the pandemic, discovered novel spaces for the first time and stated a high relevance of contact with nature for their wellbeing. Elderly people above sixty five, on the contrary, stayed more frequently at home. Significant differences are visible between the age groups also with regard to negative symptoms experienced in case of restricted access to green areas due to strict pandemic measures such as lockdowns and quarantine. All age groups, however, similarly acknowledged the importance of green areas for their physical, mental and emotional health in general during the pandemic.