Cities have become the predominant living environments of human beings worldwide. In an era of social-ecological crisis intensified by climate change, loss of biodiversity, and socio-environmental injustice, the shaping of responsive cities is crucial for fostering healthy and regenerative urban societies and nature preservation. The role of urban environmental spatial qualities should be re-thought in light of the pandemic diffusion. However, neither the relationship between the daily environmental conditions of urban citizens and their health nor the interconnection between healthy nature as a basis for resilient cities are organically included in urban design, thus limiting the capacity for shaping healthier cities. The questions that shape this Research Topic are: What is the relation between health and ecosystem services in urban areas? How nature's health at multiple scales (e.g., urban to planetary ecosystems) is interconnected with healthy urban societies, and how can nature protection be linked with health protection?
Despite ecosystem services relations with urban planning has been at the center of numerous publications aiming at finding practical solutions for building sustainable cities, the systematic investigation of how ecosystem services affect human health is still an open subject. Furthermore, the well-being of citizens is a concept that goes beyond the instrumental values of nature, which are the focus of the ecosystem service concept. In this regard, an integrative ecosystem services valuation needs to consider relational and intrinsic values unfolding in responsive human-nature relations striving for a good life for human and non-human nature in cities and beyond. Healthy urban human-nature relations call for a fundamental shift in attitudes and norms regarding how we deal with nature, considering that our health is inseparable from nature’s health. This is also linked with biocultural diversity, which has gained attention since recognizing the intangible culture as a key for promoting intercultural dialogue among communities. Biocultural diversity arises from the links and feedbacks between cultural diversity and biological diversity and is a dynamic concept that includes the cultural dimension of nature.
This Research Topic aims to collect manuscripts investigating the relationship between well-being, nature, land uses, and ecosystem services using an organic and integrated perspective. Also, conceptual papers and case studies reflecting on norms and ethics concerning the responsive relationship between the health of human and nonhuman nature are warmly welcome. Inter-and transdisciplinary approaches among urban scientists, functional ecologists, sociologists, ecosystem modelers, geographers, environmental philosophers, and environmental medicine analysts are welcomed, especially as they deal with experiences of quantitative/qualitative approaches that overcome the data analysis through GIS assessment and includes societal, citizens and urban users’ perspectives. Papers that consider pluralistic valuations of ecosystem services for healthy human-nature relations nourished by non-anthropocentric worldviews are particularly welcome. Collected papers should be evaluated in the light of their capacity to furnish advancements for shaping healthy relationships with nature in cities and worldwide, such as through urban planning.
Cities have become the predominant living environments of human beings worldwide. In an era of social-ecological crisis intensified by climate change, loss of biodiversity, and socio-environmental injustice, the shaping of responsive cities is crucial for fostering healthy and regenerative urban societies and nature preservation. The role of urban environmental spatial qualities should be re-thought in light of the pandemic diffusion. However, neither the relationship between the daily environmental conditions of urban citizens and their health nor the interconnection between healthy nature as a basis for resilient cities are organically included in urban design, thus limiting the capacity for shaping healthier cities. The questions that shape this Research Topic are: What is the relation between health and ecosystem services in urban areas? How nature's health at multiple scales (e.g., urban to planetary ecosystems) is interconnected with healthy urban societies, and how can nature protection be linked with health protection?
Despite ecosystem services relations with urban planning has been at the center of numerous publications aiming at finding practical solutions for building sustainable cities, the systematic investigation of how ecosystem services affect human health is still an open subject. Furthermore, the well-being of citizens is a concept that goes beyond the instrumental values of nature, which are the focus of the ecosystem service concept. In this regard, an integrative ecosystem services valuation needs to consider relational and intrinsic values unfolding in responsive human-nature relations striving for a good life for human and non-human nature in cities and beyond. Healthy urban human-nature relations call for a fundamental shift in attitudes and norms regarding how we deal with nature, considering that our health is inseparable from nature’s health. This is also linked with biocultural diversity, which has gained attention since recognizing the intangible culture as a key for promoting intercultural dialogue among communities. Biocultural diversity arises from the links and feedbacks between cultural diversity and biological diversity and is a dynamic concept that includes the cultural dimension of nature.
This Research Topic aims to collect manuscripts investigating the relationship between well-being, nature, land uses, and ecosystem services using an organic and integrated perspective. Also, conceptual papers and case studies reflecting on norms and ethics concerning the responsive relationship between the health of human and nonhuman nature are warmly welcome. Inter-and transdisciplinary approaches among urban scientists, functional ecologists, sociologists, ecosystem modelers, geographers, environmental philosophers, and environmental medicine analysts are welcomed, especially as they deal with experiences of quantitative/qualitative approaches that overcome the data analysis through GIS assessment and includes societal, citizens and urban users’ perspectives. Papers that consider pluralistic valuations of ecosystem services for healthy human-nature relations nourished by non-anthropocentric worldviews are particularly welcome. Collected papers should be evaluated in the light of their capacity to furnish advancements for shaping healthy relationships with nature in cities and worldwide, such as through urban planning.
