A human needs approach to revealing nature's benefits for visitors to the coast

Abstract

The positive influence on psychological well‐being of interactions in nature appears to be particularly important in understanding the profound connections that people have with natural environments. Such influences have been recorded as being associated with increases in self‐esteem, feelings of rejuvenation and renewal as well as stress reduction. To a large extent, these understandings have been garnered through laboratory experiments to elicit preferences for different environments, frequently comparing contrasting scenes such as urban and rural. This paper aims to describe and evaluate a methodology for assessing and measuring, in‐situ, how interactions at the coast contribute to a range of dimensions associated with psychological well‐being. It describes the development and the empirical testing of this methodology, which is based on the premise that certain human needs can be satisfied through interactions in nature that positively influence psychological well‐being. Specifically, indicators of human needs were incorporated into a survey using a Likert scale to capture the extent to which needs were satisfied in two case‐study locations along the Jurassic Coast, Dorset. Based on the results of this study, it is concluded that this approach has merit as a methodology for determining the multiple ways in which psychological well‐being is influenced as a result of a specific visit to a unique setting and one that can be replicated for use in different environmental location.