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Contributed Talk

Session: : Urban Ecosystems 6

COS 138-6 - Cultural ecosystem service provision in diverse New York City green spaces

Tuesday, August 8, 2023
4:45 PM – 5:00 PM PDT
Location: E146
Abstract: Urban green spaces and public parks provide multiple benefits for urban residents, while also being a key component of urban climate change adaptation and resilience. Yet, across cities, parks vary in size, as well as their social, ecological, and physical-built characteristics. This variation impacts the provisioning of ecosystem services and benefits to people. In particular, cultural ecosystem services—the non-material services that affect physical and mental well-being—are not solely produced by ecosystem characteristics; there is a need to understand how individuals’ perceptions and personal characteristics interact with the ecosystem characteristics to co-produce cultural ecosystem services. Moreover, it is uncertain what role green space size plays in this co-production. Previous studies suggest larger forested parks offer greater connection to nature while others find more familiar, easily accessible, small pocket park green spaces are more important. Given these uncertainties we ask, what social, biophysical, and built components of NYC parks and their users contribute to park goers’ subjective wellbeing and place attachment? Over three seasons, we conducted 1235 on-the ground surveys with park users, along with environmental assessments, in six New York City parks of varying types and sizes—small pocket parks, medium-sized community parks, and large forested parks.



Regardless of biophysical characteristics and socio-demographic characteristics, park users reported higher subjective well-being in the park (mean = 4.5 on 1-5 scale) than their overall life well-being (4.0; p< 0.001). While this aligns with previous work, not all experiences of park users were the same. Despite differences in socio-demographic characteristics and both positive and negative perceptions of parks, well-being in the park (4.6) and place attachment (4.2) were highest in the forested parks compared to community and pocket parks (p< 0.01). The forested parks are not only larger, but also have unique landscape metrics (e.g., lower patch density and less fragmentation) and built amenities (e.g., fewer benches, sports fields, bathrooms, playgrounds, etc) that distinguish these green spaces from community and pocket parks and impact use and accessibility. However, across all the park types, we also found important social characteristics of park users, including frequency of visits and engagement in community-based organizations, that related to higher well-being within the parks and place attachment, respectively. The results of this study highlight that park design and planning should not only focus on larger greenspaces, as we also see benefits of cultural ecosystem services, such as improved wellbeing and place attachment, co-produced in smaller community and pocket parks.