Using social media data to understand the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on urban green space use

A systematic review of the relationship between natural environments and physiological and mental health during different stages of the COVID-19 pandemic

COVID-19 has altered how individuals interact with natural environments. Numerous studies have investigated the effects of such environments on health. However, how natural environments influenced individuals' physiological and mental health during various stages of the COVID-19 pandemic remains unclear. Therefore, we conducted this study to investigate the effects of natural environments on individuals' physiological and mental health during different stages of the pandemic; we also identified factors that mediated these effects. Overall, we evaluated the importance of natural environments during challenging times. This study adhered to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis guidelines. The pandemic period was divided into three stages on the basis of severity: pandemic (March 2020 - February 2022), easing (February 2022-September 2022), and post-acute COVID pandemic (September 2022 - present). An initial pool of 3018 studies was narrowed down to a final sample of 73 studies. During the pandemic stage, individuals frequenting public green spaces exhibited improved well-being, reduced stress levels, and a sense of nature deprivation. Private green spaces played crucial roles in maintaining health during the pandemic stage. Highquality window views were associated with improved well-being and reduced depression. During the easing stage, the environmental quality of public green spaces influenced individuals' perceived safety and sense of belonging. And coastal areas were the preferred natural destinations in this stage. During the post-acute COVID pandemic stage, individuals acknowledged the importance of natural environments in maintaining physiological and mental health as they gradually returned to prepandemic normalcy. In conclusion, the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted humanity's reliance on nature. Therefore, sufficient urban spaces should be dedicated to preservation of natural environments to mitigate negative emotions arising from prolonged indoor stays.

Change of urban park usage as a response to the COVID-19 global pandemic

Urban parks became critical for maintaining the well-being of urban residents during the COVID-19 global pandemic. To examine the impact of COVID-19 on urban park usage, we selected New York City (NYC) and used SafeGraph mobility data, which was collected from a large sample of mobile phone users, to assess the change in park visits and travel distance to a park based on 1) park type, 2) the income level of the visitor census block group (visitor CBG) and 3) that of the park census block group (park CBG). All analyses were adjusted for the impact of temperature on park visitation, and we focused primarily on visits made by NYC residents. Overall, for the eight most popular park types in NYC, visits dropped by 49.2% from 2019 to 2020. The peak reduction in visits occurred in April 2020. Visits to all park types, excluding Nature Areas, decreased from March to December 2020 as compared to 2019. Parks located in higher-income CBGs tended to have lower reductions in visits, with this pattern being primarily driven by large parks, including Flagship Parks, Community Parks and Nature Areas. All types of parks saw significant decreases in distance traveled to visit them, with the exception of the Jointly Operated Playground, Playground, and Nature Area park types. Visitors originating from lower-income CBGs traveled shorter distances to parks and had less reduction in travel distances compared to those from higher-income CBGs. Furthermore, both before and during the pandemic, people tended to travel a greater distance to parks located in high-income CBGs compared to those in low-income CBGs. Finally, multiple types of parks proved crucial destinations for NYC residents during the pandemic. This included Nature Areas to which the visits remained stable, along with Recreation Field/Courts which had relatively small decreases in visits, especially for lower-income communities. Results from this study can support future park planning by shedding light on the different uses of certain park types before and during a global crisis, when access to these facilities can help alleviate the human well-being consequences of "lockdown" policies.

Detecting informal green, blue, and street physical activity spaces in the city using geotagged sports-related Twitter tweets

Introduction

Finland's natural physical environment and climate support a wide variety of informal outdoor sports, thereby motivating the population to do physical exercise in scenic environments. The vast majority of Finns enjoys outdoor recreational activities, and could thus be encouraged to post accounts of their year-round activities on social media. Our aim was to find out in what kind of areas and spaces, spatially, users are tweeting about sporting activities.

Methods

We use geotagged Twitter tweets filtering for 16 sporting activity keywords in both English and Finnish. The case study was conducted in the Helsinki Metropolitan Area, Finland, with an emphasis on cross-country skiing as a sports activity when there is snow. In a secondary analysis we concentrated on the sports people were practicing in these locations when there was no snow. The location spaces are split in to three land cover types: green, blue, and street spaces.

Results

We found that approximately half of the 150 skiing-related tweets were geotagged in green spaces, and half in street spaces. This finding related to street space was attributable to a spatial scale error: when we checked the results manually we noticed that they referenced the sporting location in the green space. Hence, then over 90% of the 745 non-ski-related tweets were geotagged in a street space.

Discussion

We conclude that Twitter is a beneficial tool for detecting spaces used for informal physical activity. A shortcoming in current Finnish national sporting policies is that spaces for informal physical activity are not explicitly mentioned- we use the term informal with reference both to the space and to the sporting activity, whereby public spaces are used for physical activity. This new knowledge of sporting locations will help city planners and sports planners to improve informal sports facilities, which in turn will promote healthy exercise in cities.

A systematic review of urban green space research over the last 30 years: A bibliometric analysis

Worldwide, due to rapid urbanization, the provision of urban green spaces (UGSs) has become a primary goal of urban planning. As such, research on the benefits, effects, and challenges of UGSs has gained widespread attention among scholars. This paper comprehensively analyzes three decades of UGS research and its evolution; it conducts a bibliometric analysis of approximately 4000 articles and reviews from the Web of Science platform to discover the patterns and trends characterizing UGS research over time. We found that the pioneers of initial UGS research were the United States and Canada, whereas recently the European Union and China have become the global engines of research in the field. UGS research initially focused on studying urban forests, gradually shifting toward green spaces located in inner urban areas. Early on, researchers investigated UGSs (i.e., urban forests) from an ecological perspective. However, the most current research phase focuses on the social aspects of UGSs, characterized by such keywords as environmental justice and accessibility. Furthermore, the introduction of geographic information systems (GIS) has given new impetus to the evolution of UGS research and has remained the most used technological advancement besides remote sensing techniques. As the social aspects of UGS research have gained importance, new research methods have been employed, such as machine learning, big data and social media data analysis, and artificial intelligence, most recently.

Contesting views on mobility restrictions in urban green spaces amid COVID-19-Insights from Twitter in Latin America and Spain

Positive sentiments towards urban green spaces (UGS) unequivocally increased worldwide amid COVID-19. In contrast, this paper documents that views on mobility restrictions applicable to UGS are of a contested nature. That is, while residents unambiguously report positive sentiments towards UGS, they do not share views on how to administer access to UGS-which is a matter of public policy. These contesting views reflect opposite demands that managers of UGS had to balance during the pandemic as they faced the challenge of reducing risk of spread while providing services that support physical and mental health of residents. The empirical analysis in this paper relies on views inferred through a text classification algorithm implemented on Twitter messages posted from January to October 2020, by urban residents in three Latin American countries-Argentina, Colombia, and Mexico-and Spain. The focus on Latin America is motivated by the documented lack of compliance with mobility restrictions; Spain works as a comparison point to learn differences with respect to other regions. Understanding and following in real-time the evolution of contesting views amid a pandemic is useful for managers and city planners to inform adaptation measures-e.g. communication strategies can be tailored to residents with specific views.