Heat vulnerability: health impacts of heat on older people in urban and rural areas in Europe.

Exposure to extreme heat is associated with both increased morbidity and mortality, especially in older people. Health burdens associated with heat include heat stroke, diabetes mellitus, hypertension, ischemic heart diseases, heart failure and arrhythmia, pulmonary diseases but also injuries, problems with activities of daily living, and mental disorders. In Europe, there are remarkable spatial differences in heat exposure between urban and less populated areas.

How to integrate youth in regional sustainability transformation processes: Tools, structures, and effects.

This study examines young people's involvement in regional sustainability transformation processes based on a real-world experiment in a community of 5700 inhabitants on the southern outskirts of city of Vienna, Austria. The eight-month experiment aimed to explore methods and tools for transdisciplinary co-creation with youth, the impact of structural conditions on their participation and the effects of their integration. Findings highlight the crucial roles of topics relevant to youth, a trusted intermediary like a youth worker, and structural conditions such as political support and resource allocation in enhancing youth engagement success.

Exploring the uptake of advanced digital technologies in environmental assessment practice - Experiences from Austria and Germany.

Environmental assessment (EA) evaluates the environmental impacts of proposed projects, plans or policies to inform decision making. While several studies have highlighted the potential and opportunities of digitalisation for EA, few have explored practitioners' perceptions using a mixed methods approach in order to discover concerns and risks identified by EA of novel technological approaches. In addition, this initial exploratory study examines the perception of benefits and contributions to quality and effectiveness of advanced digital approaches, such as the introduction of artificial intelligence, in EA practice.

Nature visits, but not residential greenness, are associated with reduced income-related inequalities in subjective well-being.

Nature exposure can promote human health and well-being. Additionally, there is some, albeit mixed, evidence that this relationship is stronger for socio-economically disadvantaged groups (equigenesis). Using a cross-sectional survey of the Austrian population (N = 2300), we explored the relationships between both residential greenness and recreational nature visits, and affective (WHO-5 Well-Being Index) and evaluative (Personal Well-Being Index-7) subjective well-being.

Was it really different? COVID-19-pandemic period in long-term recreation monitoring - A case study from Polish forests.

Unlabelled: The COVID -19 pandemic posed serious challenge for securing public health worldwide. Public health preparedness and restrictions put in place impacted many aspects of human life, including recreational activities and access to outdoor recreational destinations. Green spaces have become one of the few sources of resilience during the coronavirus crisis due to their restorative effects on psychophysical health and community well-being.

Covid-19 and outdoor recreation - Lessons learned? Introduction to the special issue on "Outdoor recreation and Covid-19: Its effects on people, parks and landscapes".

Unlabelled: The special issue presents international experiences with COVID-19 in the years 2020 and 2021 on outdoor recreation and nature-based tourism. To set the scene, a bibliometric and qualitative analysis illustrates and clusters recent publications on COVID-19. Against this background contributions from Japan, China, Brazil, Indonesia, Austria, Croatia, the United States, New Zealand, Taiwan, Australia, Sweden, Poland and Ireland draw a truly international picture of the pandemic crisis, the effects, coping behavior and related strategies.

Cross-continental evaluation of landscape-scale drivers and their impacts to fluvial fishes: Understanding frequency and severity to improve fish conservation in Europe and the United States.

Fluvial fishes are threatened globally from intensive human landscape stressors degrading aquatic ecosystems. However, impacts vary regionally, as stressors and natural environmental factors differ between ecoregions and continents. To date, a comparison of fish responses to landscape stressors over continents is lacking, limiting understanding of consistency of impacts and hampering efficiencies in conserving fishes over large regions.

Contamination of imported kernels by unapproved genome-edited varieties poses a major challenge for monitoring and traceability during transport and handling on a global scale: inferences from a study on feral oilseed rape in Austria.

Novel techniques such as CRISPR/Cas are increasingly being applied for the development of modern crops. However, the regulatory framework for production, labelling and handling of genome-edited organisms varies worldwide. Currently, the European Commission is raising the question whether genome-edited organisms should still be regulated as genetically modified organisms in the future or whether a deregulation should be implemented.

Experience Them, Love Them, Protect Them-Has the COVID-19 Pandemic Changed People's Perception of Urban and Suburban Green Spaces and Their Conservation Targets?

Public green and open spaces fulfil various social, ecological, economic, and aesthetic roles, which can be complementary while also competing with one another. The COVID-19 pandemic catalysed multiple societal changes, including citizens' perception, needs and expectations relating to urban green spaces. This article discusses the extent to which the temporally and geographically changed patterns of experiencing these natural spaces also influenced users' perception and behaviour as well as their appreciation of the conservation areas.

The plurality of wilderness beliefs and their mediating role in shaping attitudes towards wilderness.

In light of current trends of land abandonment across Europe, the rewilding of abandoned land is increasingly discussed as a future land management option. Since many of the regions affected by rewilding developments will be located in vicinity to densely populated areas, it is imperative to better understand public's attitudes towards an expansion of wilderness. Prior research on wilderness attitudes has typically been descriptive and rarely explored the underlying processes that lead to differences in wilderness attitudes.

Integrating Place Attachment into Management Frameworks: Exploring Place Attachment Across the Recreation Opportunity Spectrum.

The importance of place in landscape management and outdoor recreation has been prominent in the literature since the 1970s. As such, calls to incorporate place into the management of parks, forests, and other protected areas exist. However, little work explores how place attachment may complement existing management frameworks.

Management of mountainous meadows associated with biodiversity attributes, perceived health benefits and cultural ecosystem services.

Associations between biodiversity, human health and well-being have never been discussed with reference to agriculturally managed, species-rich mountainous meadows. We evaluated these associations between extensively managed (one mowing a year, no fertilization) and abandoned (no mowing since more than 80 years, no fertilization) semi-dry meadows located in the Austrian and Swiss Alps. We quantified the richness and abundance of plants, grasshoppers, true bugs, bumblebees, syrphids and landscape characteristics in the surroundings of the meadows.

Do Protected Areas Contribute to Health and Well-Being? A Cross-Cultural Comparison.

Due to their valuable landscape and natural characteristics, protected areas (PAs) distinguish themselves from other green spaces. Studies that survey individuals on the perceived capacity of PAs to provide health benefits are very limited. However, the importance of PAs for societal health could emphasize the necessity to preserve them.

Evaluating the management effectiveness of protected areas in Mongolia using the management effectiveness tracking tool.

The importance of management increases in the context of numerous and intensive inner and outer pressures on Protected Areas (PAs). The need to assess the management effectiveness (ME) in protected areas is increasing around the world. The ME assessment helps to improve the management of PAs and to develop a rational, long-term action plan.

Health-Related Effects of Short Stays at Mountain Meadows, a River and an Urban Site-Results from a Field Experiment.

The study compared psychological and physiological health effects of short-term stays at managed and abandoned meadows, a mountain river, and an urban site of a dependent sample of 22 adult participants (mean age 27) during an 11-day field trip. The study found that pulse rates decreased during the stays at all the meadows and the urban site while no decrease was observed at the river. Blood pressure increased at all sites during the stay, with no study-site differences for systolic, but for diastolic, blood pressure.

An Examination of Whitewater Boaters' Place Attachment and Specialization in Four Different River Settings.

Research on place attachment suggests that place identity and place dependence differ between recreationists with varying levels of specialization, recreating in different settings and with different resource proximities to their home. To further explore this relationship, we compared place attachment and recreation specialization of whitewater boaters in four different river settings. Data were collected on three rivers in the US and one in Austria.

Reloading Pupils' Batteries: Impact of Green Spaces on Cognition and Wellbeing.

Cognitive functioning and academic performance of pupils depend on regular breaks from classroom work. However, it is unclear which settings during such breaks provide the best environment to restore cognitive performance and promote wellbeing of adolescent pupils. Therefore, we investigated the effects of staying in different urban green spaces during breaks.

Vulnerability to heatwaves and implications for public health interventions - A scoping review.

Background: Heatwaves form a serious public health threat, especially for vulnerable groups. Interventions such as active outreach programs, exposure reduction measures and monitoring and mapping of at-risk groups are increasingly implemented across the world but little is known about their effect.

Objectives: To assess how vulnerable groups are identified and reached in heat health interventions, to understand the effectiveness and efficiency of those interventions, and to identify research gaps in existing literature.

Biosphere Reserve for All: Potentials for Involving Underrepresented Age Groups in the Development of a Biosphere Reserve through Intergenerational Practice.

Stakeholder participation is of high importance in UNESCO biosphere reserves as model regions for sustainable development; however, certain groups remain underrepresented. The paper proposes Intergenerational Practice (IP) as a means of involving youth and elderly women and explores its options and barriers, using the example of the Salzburger Lungau and Kärntner Nockberge Biosphere Reserve in Austria. Case study analysis is used involving mixed methods.

Visitor Preferences for Visual Changes in Bark Beetle-Impacted Forest Recreation Settings in the United States and Germany.

Extensive outbreaks of tree-killing insects are increasing across forests in Europe and North America due to climate change and other factors. Yet, little recent research examines visitor response to visual changes in conifer forest recreation settings resulting from forest insect infestations, how visitors weigh trade-offs between physical and social forest environment factors, or how visitor preferences might differ by nationality. This study explored forest visitor preferences with a discrete choice experiment that photographically simulated conifer forest stands with varying levels of bark beetle outbreaks, forest and visitor management practices, and visitor use levels and compositions.

Setting Preferences of High and Low Use River Recreationists: How Different are They?

Whitewater boaters often choose a river based on their preferences for attributes important for their trip experience. This study explored whether preferences and tradeoffs of whitewater boaters for social, resource, and managerial attributes of riverscapes differ among a high and a low use river in the United States by employing a stated choice approach. River trip scenarios were displayed using verbal descriptions and computer-generated photographs.

Farmers' Preferences for Future Agricultural Land Use Under the Consideration of Climate Change.

Cultural landscapes in Austria are multifunctional through their simultaneous support of productive, habitat, regulatory, social, and economic functions. This study investigates, if changing climatic conditions in Austria will lead to landscape change. Based on the assumption that farmers are the crucial decision makers when it comes to the implementation of agricultural climate change policies, this study analyzes farmers' decision-making under the consideration of potential future climate change scenarios and risk, varying economic conditions, and different policy regimes through a discrete choice experiment.

Past on-site experience, crowding perceptions, and use displacement of visitor groups to a peri-urban national park.

Past on-site experience was linked to the crowding perceptions and use displacement of 383 on-site visitors to the peri-urban Danube Floodplains National Park, Austria. Three visitor groups were determined according to their area experience: local residents from Vienna and rural communities, having the highest level of experience; regional visitors from the city and eastern Austria; and tourists from Austria and abroad with the lowest degree of experience. Crowding perceptions were significantly different across the user groups.