Fast Fact Library

A 5-year longitudinal study in Great Britain found that moving to a greener area not only improves people's mental health, but that the effect is sustained for a long time. Individuals who moved to greener areas had...

Alcock, Ian, Mathew P. White, Benedict W. Wheeler, Lora E. Fleming, and Michael H. Depledge. (2014). Longitudinal effects on mental health of moving to greener and less green urban areas. Environmental Science & Technology, 48(2), 1247-1255.

An extensive visual preference study conducted with 274 Australian office workers found that any green roof is preferred over a concrete roof and taller, flowering, and/or grassy vegetation is preferred over lower...

Lee, Kate E., Kathryn J. H. Williams, Leisa D. Sargent, Claire Farrell, and Nicholas S. Williams. (2014). Living roof preference is influenced by plant characteristics and diversity. Landscape and Urban Planning, 122, 152-159.

The greening of three middle school schoolyards in Austria reduced students’ physiological stress levels and enhanced their psychological well-being. Students perceived the schoolyard to be more restorative...

Kelz, Christina, Gary W. Evans, and Kathrin Röderer. (2013). The restorative effects of redesigning the schoolyard: A multi-methodological, quasi-experimental study in rural Austrian middle schools. Environment and Behavior, 47(2), 119-139.

According to a 2013 study of lawns in the Los Angeles metropolitan area, low-density plantings of trees on irrigated lawns can significantly reduce turfgrass evapotranspiration through partial shading and serve as a...

Litvak, Elizaveta, Neeta S. Bijoor, and Diane E. Pataki. (November 2013). Adding trees to irrigated turfgrass lawns may be a water-saving measure in semi-arid environments. Ecohydrology 7(5): 1314-1330. https://doi.org/10.1002/eco.1458

People place more value on the future after exposure to nature. The results of three studies—two laboratory experiments and a field study—reveal future discount rates 10-16% lower after nature exposure than after...

van der Wal, Arianne J., Hannah M. Schade, Lydia Krabbendam, and Mark van Vugt. (2013). Do natural landscapes reduce future discounting in humans? Proceedings of the Royal Society of Biological Sciences, 280(1773). doi: 10.1098/rspb.2013.2295

Sunflowers removed more lead and copper from the soil than amaranth and Indian mustard in this Malaysian study. Sunflowers also removed significantly more lead (50-54%) and copper (34-34%) from contaminated...

Rahman, Motior M., Sofian M. Azirun, and Amru N. Boyce. (2013). Enhanced accumulation of copper and lead in amaranth (Amaranthus paniculatus), Indian mustard (Brassica Juncea) and sunflower (Helianthus annuus). PLOS ONE 8(5): e62941. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0062941

Data collected from 1990 to 2007 suggests that loss of trees to the emerald ash borer increased human mortality related to cardiovascular and lower-respiratory-tract illness. Across the 15 states in the study area...

Donovan, Geoffrey H., David T. Butry, Yvonne L. Michael, Jeffrey P. Prestemon, Andrew M. Liebhold, Demetrios Gatziolis, and Megan Y. Mao. (2013). The relationship between trees and human health: Evidence from the spread of the Emerald Ash Borer. American Journal of Public Health 44(2), 139-145.

Exposure to green space can be associated with stress reduction and increased meditation as indicated by a 2013 Edinburgh study that used portable electroencephalograms (EEGs) to analyze brain wave patterns. Each...

Aspinall, Peter, Richard Coyne, Panagiotis Mavros, and Jenny Roe. (2013). The urban brain: Analysing outdoor physical activity with mobile EEG. British Journal of Sports Medicine.  https://doi.org/10.1136/bjsports-2012-091877