Accessible green space in cities supports good mental and physical health. Natural spaces in cities help mitigate climate change. Planners should take note.
Related research
Comparing health, stress, wellbeing and greenspace across six cities in three continents
The Mental Health Benefits of Purposeful Activities in Public Green Spaces in Urban and Semi-Urban Neighbourhoods
Access to Green Space in Disadvantaged Urban Communities: Evidence of Salutogenic Effects Based on Biomarker and Self-report Measures of Wellbeing
Green Space and Stress: Evidence from Cortisol Measures in Deprived Urban Communities
Using novel approaches to investigate how evolving cities affect residents' well-being and how this interacts with the overall health of city systems.
Udon Thani in Northern Thailand is a rapidly developing small city that is planning ahead to ensure its growth is green and sustainable.
Diane Archer, SEI Asia in a short interview with Thomson Reuters.
What does a healthy and liveable city look like? This initiative is working with residents of the Northern Thailand city of Udon Thani to find out.
Non-traditional urban planning tools – think art and poetry – underpin new ways of co-designing city infrastructure to address health and mobility issues.
For two years, an SEI-led team of researchers measured groundwater levels throughout the city in search of answers to Bangalore's water shortage.
SEI is helping develop legislation on air quality in Nairobi to improve the lives of the city’s most vulnerable people.
After decades of car-centred urban planning in the Tallinn, the city plans to give the centre back to its people and enliven urban culture.
Uncontrolled growth, luxury construction and gentrification are driving out many residents and making life more difficult for all.
Will introducing green roofs, green walls, rain gardens and planting trees improve our cities?
Bringing nature back to cities and workplaces - with Steve Cinderby, who has studied the positive connection between green spaces and well-being
Environmental monitoring with citizen science in Nakuru, Kenya
Can citizen-led monitoring help local governments manage cities better and improve services to people? This was the question CHeW investigated through environmental monitoring using citizen science techniques.
SEI supported environmental leaders from a community in Nakuru, Kenya using a data collection app called Epicollect to map out environmental challenges facing their local area. EpiCollect enables questionnaires to be created which are then accessible on mobile phones. User responses to questions are linked to their locations using the phone’s GPS.
Between April and June 2019, a group of 15 Environment Champions surveyed their neighbourhood (called Free Area) taking pictures of problem areas and documenting the status of them over the time-period. The SEI team helped co-organize information collection activities and afterwards shared findings back to the community and local government representatives including public health officers, County Government and County Assembly, Nakuru Water and Sewerage Company (NAWASCO), ward administrators, garbage collectors and the Area Chief, during a workshop held in mid-2019.
The survey brought a focus on the dominant issues which were related to waste (open dumping) and water and drainage (leaking/broken water and sewer pipes, and open or unsafe manholes). The data from the survey was also mapped so that users are able to identify where the problems were and to help the relevant authorities resolve them.
This is one example of how, through the CheW initiative, SEI is striving to catalyze citizen-led activities within rapidly growing cities and to embed them into improved urban governance practices.
Using novel approaches to investigate how evolving cities affect residents' well-being and how this interacts with the overall health of city systems.
This exploratory study applies a standardised analysis framework to health and wellbeing metrics of cities in the UK, Sweden, Estonia, Kenya and Thailand.
This pilot study shows that undertaking purposeful activity in public green space has the potential to promote health and prevent mental ill health.
This report provides a first-ever assessment of how opportunities for low-carbon development are distributed across the world’s urban areas.
