I am investigating the relationships between nature and urban residents' wellbeing. Nature is broadly defined as all plants and non-human animals, including wildlife and companion animals. The geographical focus is the two most-populous cities of Australia and New Zealand: Auckland, Melbourne, Sydney and Wellington. There are three phases of the project, with more detail included below.

To anyone who has taken part in the project, your participation has made this project possible. Thank you.

More information about each part of the project is included below.

Should you have any questions about the Who needs nature? study, please let me know.

Lucy Taylor

Park Surveys

• Field work: November 2015-January 2016
• General information sheet

The park surveys involved taking ecological surveys and asking park visitors about their experience in the park.

Analysis of surveys is still underway, but after a handful of park visits in Sydney, this word cloud (right) provides an indication of how some people have described how being in the park makes them feel.

Focus Groups

• September 2014
• General information sheet

The focus groups involved gathering more information from participants of the web survey. They were really interesting and inspiring sessions of facilitated discussion about how people respond to nature in their urban environments.

Results will be published soon.

Web Survey

• November 2013-April 2014
• General information sheet
• Taylor, L., Hahs, A.K. & Hochuli, D.F. (2018) Wellbeing and urban living: nurtured by nature. Urban Ecosystems, Volume 21, Issue 1, pp 197–208.
• Taylor, L. & Hochuli, D.F. (2015) Linking human wellbeing
  and nature in cities, Poster presented at the 2015 Annual Conference of the Ecological Society of Australia; 2015, 29 November-3 December; Adelaide, Australia.

The anonymous web survey was available for 6 months and open to any adult (18+) residents of the study cities (Auckland, Melbourne, Sydney and Wellington). If you completed the survey, thank you!