Shedding Light onto the City Blues Myth-The Potential of Stimulating and Activating Effects of Urban Public Spaces and the Role of City Relatedness.

The present study aims to investigate whether a sense of relatedness to a city helps to broaden understanding of the restorative potential of urban public spaces. Findings based on a sample of German adults (n = 249) confirm that people experience relatedness to a city. The study's 3 × 3 (built, mixed, natural environment) × (average, livability environment, bird's-eye view) design revealed disordinal interactions for being away, fascination, preference, mental fatigue, and stimulating and activating effects associated with cities. This implies that humans' place perceptions are more complex than previously assumed. Both city and nature relatedness were relevant covariates of these findings. Surprisingly, the construct 'activating effects', was found to be mostly perceived as more positive for mixed and built environments compared to natural environments. Thus, complementing restorative environments research by introducing a measure for city relatedness significantly enhances understanding of the potential of urban public spaces for promoting human health and well-being.

Private-sector investor's intention and motivation to invest in Land Degradation Neutrality.

Private-sector investors could be key players in combatting global land degradation and realising the emerging concept of Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN). To better understand how to incentivize private-sector investors for LDN, we conducted an online-survey of 68 private-sector investors. Structural equation modelling based on the theory of planned behavior was performed to investigate how cognitive, social, emotional, motivational and financial determinants influence their intention and motivation to invest in LDN. Good knowledge and a positive attitude towards both LDN and investing sustainably were found to be main predictors for intention. In contrast, perceived social pressure had little effect on the intention to invest towards combating land degradation. The general motivation to invest sustainably was mainly triggered by a consciousness for sustainability and emotional attachment, less by the desire for short-term profit maximisation whilst prospects of long-term financial return are important. Overall, strong homogeneity in psychological determinants was found for both traditional and impact investors. As the determinants of the intention and the motivation to invest sustainably do not substantially differ across different investor types, our study implies that investors should be targeted as a uniform group when mobilising interest for LDN. Emphasis should be placed on the psychological determinants traditional and impact investors commonly share, rather than on the type-specific characteristics that may distinguish different investor types.

Traffic-related exposures, constrained restoration, and health in the residential context.

Traffic-related exposures may undermine the restorative character of the home, and this may in turn undermine health and residential satisfaction. We addressed this possibility with data for adults residing in a large valley near Innsbruck, Austria (N=572). We joined objective measures of traffic-related sound and air pollutants with reports from door-to-door surveys concerning perceived disturbance from traffic-related exposures, restorative qualities of the living environment, self-perceived health and residential satisfaction. We analyzed these data with successive tests of nested structural equation models, with and without the restorative quality variables. The results suggest that the negative impact of traffic-related exposures on self-perceived health and satisfaction with the living environment involves the constraint of restorative qualities of the living environment, over and above the share traditionally attributed to such exposures viewed as stressors. We discuss theoretical and practical implications of the distinction between environmental stressors and constraints on restoration.

Insights into fisheries management practices: using the theory of planned behavior to explain fish stocking among a sample of Swiss anglers.

Using inadequate management tools often threatens the natural environment. This study focuses on the example of Swiss recreational fishermen (hereafter called "anglers") as recreational fisheries management stakeholders. In recreational fisheries, fish stocking conducted by anglers has been identified as one important factor associated with declining fish catches. We therefore aimed to a) gain insights into why anglers want to maintain fish stocking and b) identify entry points for interventions to promote more pro-ecological management practices. Results (N = 349) showed that the majority of anglers think very uncritically about stocking and that they frequently engage in it. We conclude that outcome expectancies and beliefs about risks, in combination with a lack of stocking success controls are the main reasons that anglers retain stocking measures. We suggest that providing anglers with direct experience and feedback about stocking success is suitable to change their intentions regarding stocking and their actual stocking behavior, and thus, to promote more pro-ecological management methods. From a more general perspective, the results of this study are likely to help improve pro-ecological ecosystem management in other domains where problems similar to those in recreational fisheries management might exist.