Urban Blue Acupuncture: A Protocol for Evaluating a Complex Landscape Design Intervention to Improve Health and Wellbeing in a Coastal Community

Abstract

Within the BlueHealth project, funded under the Horizon 2020 European Union research framework, a number of targeted experimental design interventions were used to test the effect and impact of planning and design on encouraging people to use various blue spaces. Complex interventions were implemented and evaluations before and after each were made using a set of tools which triangulate with each other—a site assessment tool, a behaviour observation tool, a questionnaire survey (including an economic evaluation) and qualitative interviews. The theoretical basis for the research is that of affordances, and the projects each involved modest changes to the landscape using the approach of “urban acupuncture” where a small intervention can potentially have an effect out of all proportion to the investment. This paper is a protocol paper and describes the research strategy and methodology in detail for one of the intervention sites, located in Plymouth in the UK. The aim is to present the methodology as a whole so as to act as (a) a reference framework for the results of all the projects which will be reported separately in a series of research articles once all the results are in and analysed and (b) a useful reference for other researchers wishing to carry out such complex projects and where a comprehensive presentation of the strategy and methodology is unavailable. We offer this protocol for reference, for critique and for inspiration to those following us.

A Transdisciplinary Approach to Recovering Natural and Cultural Landscape and Place Identification: A Case Study of Can Moritz Spring (Rubí, Spain)

“…Beyond the VPM, a second survey would have been useful to complete the impact evaluation cycle. However, due to limited resources, we could not conduct an observational survey to evaluate the actual use of the studied site (e.g., using the SOPARC tool [ 65 ] or others designed by the BlueHealth project [ 66 , 67 ]); this information would also have been valuable for estimating the levels of physical activity and understanding the new activities and social interactions occurring in the Can Moritz spring area. The postintervention survey took place a few weeks before the lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020; this limited the number of people who could participate in the survey, as most did not reply before the lockdown and, therefore, their visits to the site would have been biased.…”

Urban Blue Acupuncture: An Experiment on Preferences for Design Options Using Virtual Models

“…In this study, in order to reinforce or to extend the value of the physical interventions developed, constructed and evaluated within the project [34], we decided to explore how a larger range of possible solutions could be tested on members of the public. We decided to test which design characteristics would be more preferred for accessibility and other benefits in different kind of landscapes through the use of virtual models, as these hold the potential to assess more options at a lower cost than through the construction of physical examples.…”

“…As part of the BlueHealth project funded under the Horizon 2020 European Union research framework https://bluehealth2020.eu/, there was a focus on the planning and design of urban blue spaces in order to determine what makes a great blue space and what are the major design factors which should be taken into account. A tool was developed to evaluate blue spaces in terms of their positive and negative points as a basis for improved planning, design and management [33], and a number of experimental interventions were also undertaken and evaluated for their effectiveness at bringing people closer to the water [34]. However, though these are useful, it was only possible to test a limited number and there was no real chance to evaluate many design options before implementing them.…”

Governance Strategies to Promote Health and Well-Being: Urban Blue Space Infrastructure Initiatives in Plymouth (Uk)

“…To attempt to address this, Plymouth City Council has laid down strategies and programmes to promote the health and well-being of all population age groups including through active outdoor activities (Bell et al 2020;PCC 2017PCC -2018.…”

“…Thus, the conditions of governance are defined in this study as: the requirements that are necessary in a governance strategy to create healthy blue spaces. While the aim of this study was to document the governance situation in Plymouth broadly and not to presuppose particular issues of contestability, we appreciate that given the involvement of stakeholders in the specific BlueHealth intervention (Bell et al, 2020) which involved complex stakeholder interaction and funding arrangements, that these aspects of governance may arise as particularly salient and/or contestable.…”