Writer: Maxime Chuatemps
Editor: Madeline Ross
Artist: Annie Hollis-Barter
Cities, mental health and nature’s role
Over four billion people – more than 50% of the global population – live in urban environments. This population, which only continues to grow, faces a multitude of crises, from climate change and pollution to wealth inequality and environmental loss. Each is another burden on mental health, another weight that disproportionately affects the most marginalised.
Green spaces are often described in policy and media as a catch-all cure for adapting our cities to climate change, protecting environmental integrity, and improving mental health. They are at the forefront of nature-based solutions (NBS), which “leverage nature and the power of healthy ecosystems” to address this litany of issues. In terms of mental health, there are decades of research supporting a positive relationship between green spaces and mental wellbeing.
Yet despite increasing investment and research, between 1990 and 2020 the amount of green spaces in urban areas declined globally by 5.6%. Combined with the potential of greening projects to drive gentrification, and the fact that green spaces can often overlook vital components of stable ecosystems, maybe it’s time we rethink how nature and mental health might interact in cities.
Biodiversity and Mental Health
Biodiversity is one aspect of stable ecosystems that is often neglected in green spaces. The same goes for its effects on mental health, with research into such relationships being disappointingly sparse. The studies that have been carried out show a mix of interactions – mostly insignificant, some positive, and several negative.
Despite a lack of studies, numerous theories have been proposed to try and frame how biodiversity could affect our mental health.
In their book ‘The experience of nature: a psychological perspective’, Rachel and Stephen Kaplan observe that we tend to prefer certain environments depending on what information we can obtain from it. Biodiversity is one such source of information and adds complexity to environments, with evidence suggesting we perceive increased complexity as being more restorative to mental health.
However, the authors caution that this relationship exists on a pendulum. If an environment is too complex, information can become incoherent or overwhelming to the viewer, and any restorative potential may be lost in all the noise.
Biodiversity may also be important to managing stress, as complexity is also a component of the Stress Reduction Theory (SRT) that argues natural environments reduce the effects of stress through several visual aspects.
Then, there is the Attention Restoration Theory (ART), which presents a model for how concentration and focus can be restored through the intrigue and novelty of more biodiverse environments. But, once again, too much biodiversity might end up being a bad thing, hindering the observer’s ability to concentrate.
Finally, it’s important to note that biodiversity indirectly affects us through its role in maintaining the ecosystem services that we benefit from. These services range from temperature regulation, removing pollution, supplying water, and more. It’s easy to imagine how mental health would be negatively affected due to the cascading effects of biodiversity loss.
Future of our cities
In the UK, the new Planning and Infrastructure Bill is set to seriously undermine protections for biodiversity and ecosystem integrity in urban environments. It has been heavily criticised by many, including by The Wildlife Trust and the RSPB. Both highlight that not only will nature “lose out” due to removal of development safeguards, but so will the residents of the future urban spaces built under this bill.
Great urban spaces should not come at the expense of nature. When it does, it’s the mental health of all residents that suffers too. Simultaneously, however, we need to readdress how we think of nature in towns and cities. We need to think of natural spaces as more than just green and look to other aspects, such as biodiversity.
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