Institute for Land, Water and Society, Charles Sturt University, Albury, NSW 2640, Australia.
Conserv Biol. 2011 Aug;25(4):816-26. doi: 10.1111/j.1523-1739.2011.01685.x. Epub 2011 Apr 28.
By 2050, 70% of the world's population will live in urban areas. In many cases urbanization reduces the richness and abundance of native species. Living in highly modified environments with fewer opportunities to interact directly with a diversity of native species may adversely affect residents' personal well-being and emotional connection to nature. We assessed the personal well-being, neighborhood well-being (a measure of a person's satisfaction with their neighborhood), and level of connection to nature of over 1000 residents in 36 residential neighborhoods in southeastern Australia. We modeled these response variables as a function of natural features of each neighborhood (e.g., species richness and abundance of birds, density of plants, and amount of vegetation cover) and demographic characteristics of surveyed residents. Vegetation cover had the strongest positive relations with personal well-being, whereas residents' level of connection to nature was weakly related to variation in species richness and abundance of birds and density of plants. Demographic characteristics such as age and level of activity explained the greatest proportion of variance in well-being and connection to nature. Nevertheless, when controlling for variation in demographic characteristics (examples were provided above), neighborhood well-being was positively related to a range of natural features, including species richness and abundance of birds, and vegetation cover. Demographic characteristics and how well-being was quantified strongly influenced our results, and we suggest demography and metrics of well-being must be considered when attempting to determine relations between the urban environment and human well-being.
到 2050 年，全球 70%的人口将居住在城市地区。在许多情况下，城市化会降低本地物种的丰富度和数量。生活在高度人工化的环境中，与多种本地物种直接互动的机会较少，可能会对居民的个人幸福感和与自然的情感联系产生不利影响。我们评估了澳大利亚东南部 36 个住宅区的 1000 多名居民的个人幸福感、邻里幸福感（衡量人们对其邻里环境的满意度的指标）和与自然的联系程度。我们将这些反应变量建模为每个社区的自然特征（例如鸟类的物种丰富度和数量、植物密度和植被覆盖率）和被调查居民的人口统计学特征的函数。植被覆盖率与个人幸福感呈最强的正相关关系，而居民与自然的联系程度与鸟类物种丰富度和数量以及植物密度的变化弱相关。年龄和活动水平等人口统计学特征解释了幸福感和与自然的联系程度变化的最大比例。然而，在控制人口统计学特征的变化（上述已举例说明）后，邻里幸福感与一系列自然特征呈正相关，包括鸟类的物种丰富度和数量以及植被覆盖率。人口统计学特征和幸福感的量化方式强烈影响了我们的结果，我们建议在试图确定城市环境与人类幸福感之间的关系时，必须考虑人口统计学特征和幸福感的衡量标准。
