Community Attitude towards Urban Green-Blue Space and Perceived Cultural Ecosystem Benefits: A Preliminary Study at Taiping Lake Garden, Perak, Malaysia

Asyirah Abdul Rahim,Mohammad Izzamil Mohd Nasir

doi:10.47405/mjssh.v5i11.550

Asyirah Abdul Rahim, Mohammad Izzamil Mohd Nasir

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.47405/mjssh.v5i11.550

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Abstract

blue spaces. Attitude towards green-blue space were also studied. However, little attention is given to perceived benefits and attitude components in ecosystem service research. This paper aims to examine community attitudes towards urban green-blue spaces and its association with perceived benefits based on cultural ecosystem services concept. A questionnaire was conducted among 31 respondents of local community at Taiping Lake Garden, Perak. The data were analyzed using Statistical Package for the Social Science (SPSS) which involving multiple regression to capture the effects of attitude components on perceived benefits. The findings suggest that overall attitudes of respondents had an excellent level of perceived attitudes toward urban green-blue space. However, among three sub-construct of attitudes, only cognitive attitude was found to be the dominant variable compared to conative and affective attitude that predicts perceived cultural ecosystem benefits. This indicates that if the community could enhance their positive attitudes toward their urban green-blue space, they may perceive higher cultural ecosystem benefits. Future research should continue to explore ways of enhancing positive attitudes among urban community as attitude may guide them to enhance their engagement in urban green-blue spaces.

Highlights

Urbanization is growing all over the world, and urban green spaces are becoming crucial to human well-being as well as increasing the opportunity for recreation (Gunnarsson et al, 2017; Liordos et al, 2020)
Several studies have been done on attitude and environmental aspects such as the relationship between attitudes toward river ecosystem services (Khan et al, 2019); urban green spaces (Balram & Dragićević, 2005); natural resources management (Cobbinah, 2015); place identity for ecosystem services (Faccioli et al, 2020); urban greenery (Abass et al, 2019); and urban forest ecosystem services management (Baur et al, 2016), but little attention is given to the individual attitude components namely, cognitive, affective and conative in ecosystem service research
H3: Cognitive, affective and conative components are positively correlated with perceived cultural ecosystem benefits

Summary

Introduction

Urbanization is growing all over the world, and urban green spaces are becoming crucial to human well-being as well as increasing the opportunity for recreation (Gunnarsson et al, 2017; Liordos et al, 2020). Experiences with natural surroundings through visits to green-blue spaces provide important cultural ecosystem services that have the potential to strengthen pro-environmental attitudes and behaviour (MartinezHarms et al, 2018). Focusing on attitude components towards urban green-blue space can help in providing information for setting the future direction or urban sustainability to maximize quality of life among urban community (Lee & Kim, 2015). This preliminary study aims to find out the effect of individual attitude components towards urban green-blue space among communities and their perceived cultural ecosystem benefits

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