Urban green spaces and stress during COVID-19 lockdown: A case study for the city of Madrid

Abstract

Due to the unexpected emergence of COVID-19, different cities improvised responses to prevent the virus from spreading and infecting the population. Madrid, capital of Spain and one of the most affected cities in Europe, confined everyone home and closed most public and private spaces, including public parks. The whole situation was surely to be responsible for stress-levels to peak. We developed an online survey to better understand the relationship between people and Urban Green Spaces prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the new bond that may have emerged from this interruption. We recruited participants, without gender or age preference, excluding underage children and teenagers, using a combination of convenience sample and a snowball approach. A total of 132 responses were logged. The study was limited to mental health inferences, specifically related to stress and its most frequent manifestations among the urban population. These indicators included physical, mood or behavioral changes and were studied on those participants who had access to UGS before and during confinement. Among the most important findings, we confirmed that when people are confronted with stressful situations, indoor plant interaction is not a substitute for different outdoor green experiences; those who interacted with green spaces in a daily manner managed stress levels better than people who didn’t (but their effects might lose strength over time); and turning to green spaces for comfort during stressful times when you don’t usually do so helps overcome difficult situations. This article contributes to the growing study of green spaces as a means towards improved mental well-being in urban areas.

The Importance of Outdoor Spaces during the COVID-19 Lockdown in Aotearoa—New Zealand

“…The specific characteristics of the environment during the pandemic were far less important than the opportunities for outdoor activity that they afforded. For instance, other studies mentioned that most first-time users reported that having access to outdoor spaces during COVID-19 was very important [14,38,51].…”

“…[ 16,19,21,[32][33][34] Importance of green spaces for a wide range of activities from exercise to birding and reported values related to reducing stress in a time of global chaos-respite and relaxation in a time of distress. [5,21,[35][36][37][38][39] Increase in the number of visitors to parks during the pandemic. [19,26,40] Access and abundance of green spaces have been proven to be an essential factor in the health and wellbeing of urban dwellers [41][42][43], and research shows us that gardens, parks, natural areas, and other types of open spaces provide many environmental and health benefits [44][45][46].…”

“…Other studies reported that 25% of the users either never or rarely accessed their local natural areas before the pandemic [35,39]. In contrast, other studies mentioned that most first-time users reported that having access to these areas during COVID-19 was very important [14,38,51]. Access to public open spaces at a time when distancing becomes necessary to reduce the risk of contagion among the population thereby became a central theme in discussions about the future of our cities.…”

Nurturing urban innovation and knowledge in the ongoing COVID-19 world

“…During the past three years, city and state administrators have been preoccupied with fighting the pandemic. Improvisations in public space reconfiguration have occurred on ad hoc basis, and some as informal projects by volunteer citizens ( Maury-Mora et al, 2022 ; Troya et al, 2020 ). We offer to city mangers an organized list of five most indicated urban innovations that would channel the emergent perspectives among the citizens for self-improvement as well as for becoming better citizens.…”

Análisis de la calidad del sueño, alteraciones del humor y modificaciones de algunos hábitos y conductas durante dos diferentes períodos de la pandemia por COVID-19 en Argentina

“…A las personas contactadas se les pidió que compartan con otros la encuesta, como una forma de muestreo de bola de nieve. Es decir, se utilizó una combinación de muestra por conveniencia y de bola de nieve, método utilizado por otros autores (Maury-Mora et al, 2022).…”