Joe Douglas
PhD: Urban greenspace – what attributes determine wellbeing?
Location: Environment Centre Wales, Bangor.
I graduated from the BA Human Sciences course at the University of Oxford in 2018 – a degree that covers many academic disciplines across the biological and social sciences. My time on that programme gave me a deep appreciation for interdisciplinary approaches to science, which I see as the most creative, collaborative, and exciting ways to do research. As an MRes Ecology & Environment student at the University of Sheffield, I studied the possible links between wellbeing outcomes derived from urban parks and the ambient levels of avian biodiversity (https://doi.org/10.1002/pan3.10279). The project was a brilliant opportunity to combine my interests in ecology, psychology, conservation science, and the ways that human-nature interactions can benefit both people and wildlife.
For my PhD project, I am again tackling the wellbeing benefits of spending time in urban green spaces. This time, I am investigating how a range of green space attributes, such as vegetation height and diversity, affect health and wellbeing outcomes. I will consider these effects in the context of the many ecosystem services and associated benefits that we derive from urban green spaces, as well as any potential disservices that may arise from different green space attributes.