Exploring Connections

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Skip to Bottom Navigation. Exploring connections between trees and human health. The legacy of Smokey Bear Measuring the efficacy of a wildfire education program in Colorado Springs Environmental justice and factors that influence participation in tree planting programs in Portland, Oregon, U.

S The effect of urban trees on the rental price of single-family homes in Portland, Oregon. Description Humans have intuitively understood the value of trees to their physical and mental health since the beginning of recorded time. A scientist with the Pacific Northwest Research Station wondered if such a link could be scientifically validated. His research team took advantage of an infestation of emerald ash borer, an invasive pest that kills ash trees, to conduct a study that gets closer to a definitive connection between the loss of trees and increased human mortality.

As we add density, Beatley expertly argues that true sustainability must extend to the blue world that defines our globe and shapes our cities.

The Urban-Ocean Connection Chapter 2. Blue Urbanist Design Chapter 5. Towards an Ocean Literacy Chapter 7. To celebrate the official publication today of Blue Urbanism: Exploring Connections Between Cities and Oceans , we thought we'd share Tim Beatley's reflection on why the topic is so important.

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Cross-posted from Biophilic Cities with permission. While we are increasingly the planet of cities , we must not forget that we live and share space on the blue planet.

We rarely put these two realms or words together, but we must begin to. By some estimates, two-thirds of our global population lies within kilometers of a shoreline. But we are drawn to water, to the sights, sounds, smells of marine environments, and there is a deep biophilic impulse and need at work here that visiting the seashore starts to satisfy. There is at once calmness and intensity and a mysterious world just beyond our reach.

Research by Michael DePledge and his team at Exeter University demonstrates what we have always known, which is that we enjoy visual and physical proximity to water and that these settings deliver immense emotional and therapeutic benefit. Our human fate here on the blue planet is, not surprisingly, intimately tied to ocean health.

And oceans are suffering in many ways—acidification and other impacts of global warming, industrial over-harvesting of fish and seafood, the accumulation of the immense detritus and pollution of modern life, from plastics to chemicals to crude oil. Is there a chance that growing cities can muster their wealth, creativity and political influence to come to the aid of oceans?

The vision of Blue Urbanism suggests yes! From the redesign of coastal edges and the promise of blue urban design, to new approaches of promoting sustainable, local seafood, to a variety of ways to build new emotional connections to the sea, there is much that cities can do.

At the heart of an urban-ocean agenda is the belief that cities, and the people who inhabit them, can and must exert the leadership needed to protect, conserve and care for the marine world.