ArticlePloS one2020
The importance of urban natural areas and urban ecosystem services during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Article in PloS one, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 66 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
66 citing papers in PubMed.
- COVID-19 and human-nature relationships: Vermonters' activities in nature and associated nonmaterial values during the pandemic.PloS one · 2020Trial
- Resilient Biodiversity Conservation: Working with Social-Ecological Connections to Navigate Crises.Bioscience · 2026Review
- Adapting a systematic conservation planning tool for supporting accessible and diverse urban greenspace recreation.Landscape ecology · 2026Article
- Article
- Linking social media data with geospatial information to analyse changes in human sentiments in and along surface water environments.MethodsX · 2025Article
- Outdoor recreation's association with mental health and well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic.PloS one · 2025Article
- Opportunities and challenges within green spaces during COVID-19: Perspectives of visitors and managers in Maine, USA.PloS one · 2025Article
- Are our cities falling behind? A German perspective on the supply for year-round green exercise.Frontiers in sports and active living · 2025Article
- Redefining Urban Recreation: A Demand Analysis for Urban Year-Round Green Exercise.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2024Article
- Article
- The Socioeconomic Effect of COVID-19 Pandemic on Iranian Children: The Mediating Role of Parents' Mental Health.International journal of school health · 2024Article
- Influence of park visitation on physical activity, well-being and social connectedness among Australians during COVID-19.Health promotion international · 2024Article
- Ecosystem services potential is declining across European capital metropolitan areas.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Tourist Trampling on a Peripheral Plant Population Restricted to an Urban Natural Area in the Capo Sant'Elia Promontory (Sardinia, W-Mediterranean Basin).Plants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Human mobility data demonstrates increase in park visitation since start of COVID-19 pandemic in Buffalo, New York.Preventive medicine reports · 2024Article
- Explaining demographic-destination preferences for cultural ecosystem services: A set-theoretic configurational analysis.Heliyon · 2024Article
- Trail use and recreational physical activity behavior of trail users and non-users during COVID-19 restrictions in Colorado Springs, Colorado.Journal of healthy eating and active living · 2024Article
- Change of urban park usage as a response to the COVID-19 global pandemic.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- How Much Did Urban Park Use Change under the COVID-19 Pandemic? A Comparative Study of Summertime Park Use in 2019 and 2020 in Edinburgh, Scotland.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2023Article
- Article
6 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Urban, peri-urban forests and other natural areas provide a wide range of material and non-material benefits to people known as ecosystem services. Access to these areas has been linked to benefits for physical and mental health of local populations. In the spring of 2020, the COVID-19 global pandemic forced many governments to impose a set of restrictions including the closure of businesses, cancelation of public events and schooling, social distancing, limitations on the size of social gatherings, and travel restrictions. During this period of restrictions, we conducted a study assessing the importance of urban and peri-urban forests and other natural areas to people living in and around the city of Burlington, Vermont, USA. We evaluated the self-reported use and changes in personal importance related to these natural areas before and during the period of restrictions. We received over 400 responses to our field survey. The results show that 69.0% of the respondents had increased or greatly increased their visitation rate to our natural areas and urban forests, and 80.6% of respondents considered that the importance of these areas, and access to them, either increased or greatly increased. Moreover 25.8% of the sample had either never, or very rarely accessed their local natural areas before the pandemic, but 69.2% of the first time or infrequent visitors reported that having access to these areas during COVID-19 as 'very important'. People reported that these areas were important for a wide range of activities from exercise to birding, but also reported values related to reducing stress in a time of global chaos. Our results indicate the increasing demand and value of such areas in times of crisis such as COVID-19. Experts in zoonotic disease predict the potential for more frequent pandemic events, thus predicating the importance for continued funding for, maintenance of, and improved access to, natural areas to our largely urban civilization.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.