Health-Related Effects of Short Stays at Mountain Meadows, a River and an Urban Site-Results from a Field Experiment.

The study compared psychological and physiological health effects of short-term stays at managed and abandoned meadows, a mountain river, and an urban site of a dependent sample of 22 adult participants (mean age 27) during an 11-day field trip. The study found that pulse rates decreased during the stays at all the meadows and the urban site while no decrease was observed at the river. Blood pressure increased at all sites during the stay, with no study-site differences for systolic, but for diastolic, blood pressure. Participants reported more positive psychological health effects as a result of their stays at the most remote meadow and the river on attention restoration, stress reduction and wellbeing compared to the urban site, while no differences in health perceptions were observed between managed and unmanaged meadows. This study suggests that perceived and measured health benefits were independent of the degree of naturalness of meadows. While differences measured on the physiological level between urban built and natural sites were marginal, psychological measures showed higher health benefits of the natural environments compared to the built one.

Visitor Preferences for Visual Changes in Bark Beetle-Impacted Forest Recreation Settings in the United States and Germany.

Extensive outbreaks of tree-killing insects are increasing across forests in Europe and North America due to climate change and other factors. Yet, little recent research examines visitor response to visual changes in conifer forest recreation settings resulting from forest insect infestations, how visitors weigh trade-offs between physical and social forest environment factors, or how visitor preferences might differ by nationality. This study explored forest visitor preferences with a discrete choice experiment that photographically simulated conifer forest stands with varying levels of bark beetle outbreaks, forest and visitor management practices, and visitor use levels and compositions. On-site surveys were conducted with visitors to State Forest State Park in Colorado (n = 200), Lake Bemidji State Park in Minnesota (n = 228), and Harz National Park in Germany (n = 208). Results revealed that the condition of the immediate forest surrounding was the most important variable influencing visitors' landscape preferences. Visitors preferred healthy mature forest stands and disliked forests with substantial dead wood. The number of visitors was the most important social factor influencing visitor landscape preferences. Differences in the influence of physical and social factors on visual preferences existed between study sites. Findings suggest that both visual forest conditions and visitor use management are important concerns in addressing landscape preferences for beetle-impacted forest recreation areas.