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The effects of visit characteristics in urban forest on the individual life satisfaction

XV World Forestry Congress, 2-6 May 2022

Year of publication 2022

Place of publication Rome, Italy ;

Pages 1p.

Author Jang, Y.-S., Yoo, R.-H., Lee. J.-H., Seo, J.-W.

Publisher FAO ;

Product type Document

Synopsis (short abstract) Recently, the importance and effectiveness of the urban forest have been increasing with the quality of life of urban residents. Therefore, the study aims to understand how people use the forest for recreation and determine how the visit characteristics of the urban forest affect Individual Life Satisfaction (ILS). A nationwide survey (n=8,254) was conducted on the visit frequency, proximity to the forest and life satisfaction. To measure ILS, three questions (personal, relative, collective) of COMOSWB (Concise Measure of Subjective Well-being) developed by Seo et al (2011) are used. The analysis shows that people usually visit the forest within 10~30 minutes distance (31.8%) on a weekly basis (24.2%), by walk (41.4%) for exercise (41.0%) and relaxation (32.9%). As a result of the hierarchical analysis between visit characteristics and ILS with controlling demographic variables; the ‘frequency of forest visits (t=4.50**)’ and ‘proximity to the forest (t=2.764**)’ has a positive effect on ILS. In particular, ‘frequency of forest visits(β=0.056)’ has higher level of influence than that of ‘proximity to the forest (β=0.034)’ on ILS. In other words, frequent visits to forests far away from the place of residence can improve individual life satisfaction." The significance of this study is that it statistically determines that the frequency of forest visits and the proximity to the forest are important factors for ILS. Future studies should take into account the various qualitative factors of forest visitation such as vegetation, quantity and types of forest so that it will be possible to contribute to setting up a direction for urban forest development and management. Keywords: Human health and well-being ID: 3484619

Statutory body / Meeting title World Forestry Congress (WFC)

Language English

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