Exploring coping behaviours of Sunday and workday visitors due to dense use conditions in an urban forest

Undesired social conditions such as crowding can trigger coping behaviours of urban forest visitors to avoid these. Coping behaviours, such as spatial or temporal displacement, have implications for natural and social area management. However, coping behaviours have rarely been explored in the urban context and coping research has not differentiated between workday and Sunday visitors, although there are remarkable deviations in use intensities and user composition on these days, potentially affecting crowding perceptions and coping. Coping behaviours due to crowding were compared between on-site Sunday and workday visitors (N = 330) in a protected urban forest in Vienna. More than half of the visitors perceived the forest as crowded on Sundays and 44% reported coping behaviours. Workday visitors were more likely to cope compared to Sunday visitors. Temporal, intra-area and inter-area displacement, activity displacement, as well as changes in dog-walking behaviour were reported. Sunday and workday copers reported higher crowding perceptions and were more engaged in dog walking. Workday visitors compensated for dissatisfying social site conditions with coping behaviours, while Sunday copers were less satisfied despite their coping efforts. Management implications are discussed.     

Audio-visual interaction and visitor characteristics affect perceived soundscape restorativeness: Case study in five parks in China

The capacity of urban parks to contribute to soundscape restorativeness, understood here as contributions to people’s recovery from attentional fatigue and reflection on life issues, is receiving increased interest in research and policy. However, scientific understanding of the influential mechanism of perceived soundscape restorativeness is still not clear. This paper aims to explore the effects of audio-visual interaction on perceived soundscape restorativeness (PSR) of urban parks, considering visitors of different social and demographic characteristics. The research design comprises a survey of 419 visitors to five urban parks in Fuzhou, China, general structure equation modeling, and multi-group model analysis. The results show a substantial dependence of visitors’ PSR values on respective perceptions of soundscape pleasantness and eventfulness, especially soundscape pleasantness. Visual landscape characteristics showed mediating effects on the influence of soundscape pleasantness and eventfulness on the perceived soundscape restorativeness (19.3 % and 28.3 % of the total effect, respectively). Age was the most influential social and demographic characteristic affecting the PSR, followed by gender, while occupation and educational background showed only limited effects. Future development of urban parks should strongly integrate soundscape design considerations to enhance positive PSR effects for visitors.     

Understanding spontaneous biodiversity in informal urban green spaces: A local-landscape filtering framework with a test on wall plants

In densely urbanized areas, small pockets of vegetated areas such as street verges, vacant lots, and walls can be rich in biodiversity. In spite of their small size, these ‘informal urban greenspaces’ can provide critical ecosystem services to urban residents. Maintaining and enhancing the provisioning of ecosystem services requires a systematic understanding of biodiversity patterns and drivers in informal urban green spaces. The ‘environmental filtering’ (a process of certain species selected by specific environmental conditions) concept in community ecology theory may serve as a useful tool for this goal. We tested a multi-scale filtering framework by examining the spontaneous plant diversity patterns (from 83 surveyed sites) on the vertical surfaces of the ancient city wall of Nanjing, China. We found that the variables representing local-habitat filtering (e.g., wall substrates and aspect) and landscape filtering (including spatial configuration of urban land cover, and nighttime light intensity surrounding the local habitats) can jointly explain substantial fractions of variations in taxonomic diversity (up to ca. 60%) and functional diversity (up to ca. 40%). The explanatory power was stronger in the repaired wall habitats than in the unrepaired counterparts, in line with the prediction that environmental filtering is more pronounced during the early stages of community assembly. While the strength of landscape filtering showed clear scale-dependency, its relative importance consistently outweighs local-habitat filtering across all study scales of 200–1600 m, suggesting that configuration of neighboring landscape context can play an important role in shaping local-scale biodiversity of informal urban green spaces. Our results have useful implications for the study, design, and management of informal urban green spaces. Well-tailored multi-scale filtering frameworks may contribute to understanding urban biodiversity patterns in a systematic way.     

Exotic trees contribute to urban forest diversity and ecosystem services in inner-city Cleveland,OH

Vacant land, a product of population and economic decline resulting in abandonment of infrastructure, has increased substantially in shrinking cities around the world. In Cleveland, Ohio, vacant lots are minimally managed, concentrated within low-income neighborhoods, and support a large proportion of the city’s urban forest. We quantified abundance, richness, diversity, and size class of native and exotic tree species on inner-city vacant lots, inner-city residential lots, and suburban residential lots, and used i-Tree Eco to model the quantity and economic value of regulating ecosystem services provided by their respective forest assemblages. Inner-city vacant lots supported three times as many trees, more exotic than native trees, and greater tree diversity than inner-city and suburban residential lots, with the plurality of trees being naturally-regenerated saplings. The urban forest on inner-city vacant lots also had two times as much leaf area and leaf biomass, and more tree canopy cover. The quantity and monetary value of ecosystem services provided by the urban forest was greatest on inner-city vacant lots, with exotic species contributing most of that value, while native taxa provided more monetary value on residential lots. The predominately naturally-regenerated, minimally managed exotic species on vacant land provide valuable ecosystem services to inner-city neighborhoods of Cleveland, OH.     

Urban ragweed populations in vacant lots: An ecological perspective on management

Ragweed (Ambrosia artemisiifolia L.) is one of the most prolific producers of allergenic pollen in North America, and negatively impacts tens of millions of people each year. Recent work shows that local plant populations can be the most important source of allergenic pollen in the urban environment. This research emphasizes that management choices that influence species abundance can determine the burden of allergenic pollen for people living near these plant populations. In Detroit, MI, USA, ragweed populations are predominantly found in vacant lots; the management of these lots could therefore have large impacts on allergenic pollen burdens. The main form of management in these vacant lots is mowing, which occurs at frequencies ranging from monthly mowing to no mowing. We hypothesized that annual or biennial mowing would result in conditions where ragweed populations could thrive. To test this, we conducted a vegetation survey of vacant lots in Detroit, in which we quantified the mowing regime, characteristics of the vegetation, and ragweed presence and stem density. We found that ragweed was significantly more likely to be present in lots that were mowed annually or biennially; unfortunately these are the most common management types, accounting for 51% of vacant lots in Detroit. Ragweed's association with this disturbance regime fits with its early successional status, as it is most competitive in recently disturbed soils where there is reduced competition for resources such as light. We therefore recommend one of two alternative management regimes for reducing ragweed in vacant lots: either mow them frequently (multiple times a growing season) or do not mow them at all. Both approaches will reduce ragweed prevalence in vacant lots and reduce allergenic pollen exposure for people who live near vacant lots.     

Willingness to travel to avoid recreation conflicts in Danish forests

Conflicts among forest visitors have direct effects on the quality of a recreational experience. As the number of visitors to forests close to residential areas increases, as well as the number of different activities, so does the potential for perceived conflicts. According to the literature, expanding knowledge of conflict characteristics and their causes is important for recreation planners and managers who aim to reduce conflicts.In the present study, different forest user groups were identified and categorised according to their pursued activities, and for each group, causes of conflict were identified. Furthermore, a choice experiment was constructed to estimate the distance visitors are willing to travel to encounter few visitors as opposed to many visitors, and thereby potentially experience fewer conflicts. Comparing the marginal willingness to travel (WTT) of different user groups suggests that some groups have a WTT further than the average to reach a forest with ‘Few’ visitors. The average WTT to reach a forest area with ‘Few’ visitors. ‘Mountain bikers,’ ‘Peace and nature lovers’ and ‘Horse riders’ are willing to travel 4 km more than the average per visit to reach a less crowded forest. At the other end of the scale, we find that people who are doing physical exercise are willing to travel 2 km less than the average to reach a less crowded forest.     

Knoxville’s urban wilderness: Moving toward sustainable multifunctional management

The Knoxville Urban Wilderness (KUW) in Eastern Tennessee is part of a larger global trend of acquiring vacant lands within urban landscapes for their natural habitat and recreation value. At 688 ha, the KUW is one of the largest urban wilderness areas in the United States, consisting of loosely-connected land parcels with multiple stakeholders including state, county, and city governments and private foundations. Here we use the KUW as a case study to address critical questions of management that arise for most urban wilderness projects globally: What should these areas be managed for, and how should they be managed? How can multiple stakeholders be efficiently organized to pool their resources most effectively. The KUW is currently used mainly for recreation and its potential for biodiversity conservation and education and ecosystem services is largely unutilized. As a way to promote and manage this unused potential, we began the first ecological inventory, compiling existing data and conducting biodiversity and invasive plant surveys with citizen scientists. We found that the KUW harbors a significant number of plant (250) and bird (193) species, with many other taxa also identified. We also found widespread infestation of invasive plants for which we provide management suggestions. A preliminary visitor survey shows that most visitors (about two-thirds) are from the immediate vicinity, mainly for walking (74.4%) or biking (19.9%). The vast majority (93.7%) of visitors do not want more vegetation management or removal and 98.3% of visitors would like to see the KUW expanded in area.     

Vacant lots: An underexplored resource for ecological and social benefits in cities

Vacant lots make up a large proportion of urban land and are of interest to many stakeholder groups. While they are often viewed as dangerous or unsightly, they can be an economic, social, and ecological resource. Here we present a literature review focused on restoring biodiversity in vacant lots, emphasizing the intersection of human and wildlife needs. We focus on the benefits, challenges, and processes of restoration in vacant lots and synthesize ecological, social, and economic information across these domains. We suggest that fast, inexpensive restoration techniques could be implemented in vacant lots and would be well suited to increasing greenspace in low-income areas. Furthermore, we emphasize that land managers, ecologists, sociologists, urban planners, and local communities must work together to conceptualize, carry out, and monitor restoration projects, as these projects are often characterized by disparate goals and insufficient follow-up. Vacant lot restoration is best addressed by an interdisciplinary approach that combines economic, social, and environmental needs and concerns into a holistic urban land use paradigm.     

Auditing an urban park deck with 3D geovisualization—A comparison of in-situ and VR walk-along interviews

Virtual reality-based urban audit methods are gaining increasing attention; however, most virtual urban audit studies have focused on panoramic views. The 3D city model-based geovisualizations have remained until now rather unexplored in user studies for urban audits and for communicative urban planning. We explored the feasibility of a 3D geovisualization-based urban audit in virtual reality (VR) for assessing the perceived quality of an urban park deck in Helsinki, Finland. For this purpose, we created a photorealistic and geometrically accurate 3D model (Bryga 3D) based on photogrammetric and laser scanning data. Bryga 3D was implemented on a game engine to be viewed with a head-mounted VR display. Bryga 3D’s ability to convey information in a subjective urban audit, that is, subjectively perceived affordances of a park deck, was tested in a walk-along interview study comparing auditing in situ and via the VR method. A comparison of the results with in-situ (n = 13) and VR interviews (n = 21) show that the perception of several tangible elements, such as spatial division, landforms, paths, and chairs when using Bryga VR was similar to when performed in situ. Perception of vegetation was weaker in VR in terms of its detailed quality, which somewhat affected the presented development ideas and assessment of the seasonal context. Also, weaker perception of the surroundings and city context affected the results in VR. However, considering that Bryga 3D presents an example of a highly automated 3D city modeling process conducted with minimal manual work, its results are encouraging for future attempts to advance such realizations for the purposes of communicative urban planning. 3D geovisualization-based virtual audits could be used when urban green space audits are not possible or when they are demanding to implement in situ.     

Current and potential carbon stocks of trees in urban parking lots in towns of the Eastern Cape,South Africa

Greening of shopping centre parking lots is a potentially important strategy that can contribute to urban carbon mitigation efforts, improve aesthetics and the shopping experience of consumers, whilst adding to urban biodiversity. Twenty-eight shopping centre parking lots in six Eastern Cape urban centres, South Africa, were sampled to determine tree species composition, density and annual carbon sequestration potential. The best case parking lot found during the study was used as a benchmark to display the difference between current tree density and above-ground carbon stocks relative to the potential optimum. The highest tree density was 66 trees ha^?1, whereas the average density across all sampled parking lots was less than half that (27.2 ± 22.6 trees ha^?1). The average annual carbon sequestration potential per parking lot was 1390 ± 2503 kg ha^?1. Planting density was positively related to annual sequestration rates, whilst parking lot age and the mean annual rainfall of the town had no influence. Mean tree species richness per parking lot was 2.3 ± 1.8 species, with a positive relationship to parking lot size, but not to mean annual rainfall of the site. The majority of trees (62.5%) in parking lots were alien species, although newer parking lots had significantly greater proportions of indigenous species. There was no difference in mean annual carbon sequestration rate per tree between indigenous and alien trees species. Low tree densities and small parking lot areas constrained the potential for earning carbon credits from trees in parking lots. Nonetheless, planners and designers need to be more aware of the potential contribution of trees towards urban sustainability.     

The association between plant diversity and perceived emotions for visitors in urban forests: A pilot study across 49 parks in China

Urbanization introduces uncertainties to the biodiversity of plant communities. The perception of biodiversity can be associated with positive mental health and well-being, but direct evidence is still insufficient. In this study, we collected data about plant biodiversity assessments from studies on urban forests in the literature of China’s national knowledge infrastructure. Records of the species amount, Shannon index, and Simpson index were extracted from 49 urban forest parks in 13 cities across mainland China from 2018 to 2021. A total of 1938 facial photos were obtained from microblogs with check-in locations at these parks in the Sina Microblog in 2020. Happy, sad, and neutral emotions and positive response index (PRI; happy minus sad) were rated and mapped for spatial distributions. The amount of species was distributed as a heterogeneous pattern for all plant types, and biodiversity was higher in the northern regions (e.g., ~55% in Qingdao and over 50% in Taiyuan) than in southern cities along the Yangtze River (e.g., ~35% in Huaihua and Changsha). Trees did not account for the association of biodiversity with emotional expressions. Smiles were elicited mostly in parks with more diverse shrubs (Shannon index: R=0.4335; P = 0.0029) and herbs (R=0.6162; P = 0.0008). Females showed more smiles than males (47% vs. 32%, respectively; F=39.15, P < 0.0001), and happy emotions tended to be higher in older visitors (senior vs. younger: 58% vs. 43%, respectively; F=2.72, P = 0.0280). Overall, we recommend visiting parks in northern cities of China for the benefit of evoking positive emotions through experiencing abundant undergrowth species. Female visitors would benefit more than males in the promotion of mental well-being by perceiving diverse shrubs and herbs in urban forest parks.     

Beliefs about urban fringe forests among urban residents in Sweden

The aim of this study was to examine predictors of beliefs about urban fringe forests among urban residents in Sweden (n = 586). Based on a cognitive hierarchical model, the study investigated how socio-demographic variables, as well as different values and beliefs, were related to the more specific beliefs urban residents have about urban fringe forests. Results demonstrated that the urban fringe forest was perceived to be essential for personal wellbeing, but preservation and accessibility to the forest were also important. Certain differences between socio-demographic groups were identified; for example, the importance of urban fringe forests for personal wellbeing was emphasized more by women, older people and those with a university degree. However, the importance of socio-demographic variables was modest compared with the influence of people's values and beliefs. More specifically, results showed that urban residents’ basic values and ecological worldview, as well as forest values and beliefs (i.e., concerning forest qualities and forest requirements), were important in explaining their beliefs about urban fringe forests. Overall, the study revealed that urban residents are characterized by a heterogeneous set of beliefs concerning urban fringe forests. Recognizing these multiple beliefs in urban fringe forest development processes may help mitigate future conflicts between forest visitors, urban planners, forest owners and forest managers, thus enhancing our way toward good urban living environments.     

Modeling daily visits to the 2010 Taipei International Flora Exposition

The 2010 Taipei International Flora Exposition (Flora Expo) was held in several urban parks in the center of the city. Over the course of the Expo, substantial variation was observed in the number of visitors per day. The aim of this study is to investigate the factors associated with the daily number of visitors to the Flora Expo. Our results suggest that there were periodic changes in the number of daily visits over time as well as with differences between the days of the week. In addition, temperature, duration of sunshine and precipitation were significantly correlated with the number of daily visits. Regression models suggest that the day of the week, long holiday, proximity to the closing date, temperature, duration of sunshine and hours of rainfall showed strong correlation with daily visits. Higher visits were recorded on Saturdays, Sundays and long holidays. When the temperature at noon increased by 1 °C, an average of 1435 additional visits was recorded. When the duration of sunshine increased by 1 h, an average of 895 additional visits was recorded. Approximately 1232 fewer visits were recorded when the duration of rainfall increased by 1 h. Our results also show significant closing effects on daily visits over the last four weeks. These findings may provide useful information for the operation and management of similar festivals in urban parks and help managers to accurately assess and predict the number of visitors.     

Multiple ecosystem services of informal green spaces: A literature review

Informal green spaces (IGS) such as overgrown vacant lots and urban brownfields constitute a considerable amount of green resources in the city. Given that the increasingly competitive land use of the urban area, enhancing the potential ecosystem services (ES) of IGS through design and management practices is of critical importance. This literature review paper provides an overview of ES delivered by urban IGS: What types of IGS have been discussed? Which ES have been identified in IGS, what interrelationships among different types of ES have been identified, and how can the potential of IGS be enhanced by urban design practices? 112 scientific papers were analyzed for their 1) IGS terms applied, 2) ES studied, 3) current or potential ES discussed, 4) ES trade-offs, and 5) ES assessment methods. Through the review, we found that although different types of ES have been identified in IGS, most studies did not consider ES synergies and trade-offs. The few studies assessing trade-offs of ES in IGS mostly focused on large-scale IGS such as urban brownfields rather than on small-scale IGS such as vacant lands/lots. The literature review highlights two knowledge gaps for future research: the first one is to explore the design and management knowledge that integrate multiple ES in small-scale IGS based on the assessment of potential ES trade-offs and synergies; the second one is to develop the spatial assessment of ES trade-offs and synergies, which is the key to envision design and management interventions that optimize the benefits of IGS. The literature review promotes the acknowledgement of the term IGS through highlighting their value in ES provisioning and further outlines future research directions on small-scale IGS such as vacant lands/lots and patches of spontaneous vegetation.     

Assessing regulating ecosystem services provided by the Ege University Rectorship Garden

Urban ecosystem services are generated in a diverse set of natural and managed urban green areas, including parks, urban forests, cemeteries, vegetated corridors, vacant lots, gardens, yards, and campus areas. Private gardens are generally undervalued for the ecosystem services they provide along with the other urban green areas.This paper aims to calculate three regulating ecosystem services; runoff retention, carbon storage and sequestration generated by the Ege University Rectorship Garden, which is one of the few former Levantine gardens remaining in the highly urbanized Bornova district in İzmir. The carbon storage and sequestration capacity of the trees in the area was calculated based on allometric equations. Runoff retention was computed by using the SCS-CN method. Findings show that pervious surfaces cover approximately two-thirds of the garden with 1203 trees. The estimated carbon storage of both the above and below-ground parts of the trees in the garden is 648.25 t. The total annual carbon sequestration rate is estimated to be 7.87 t year⁻¹ (0.10 kg m⁻²). The potential storm water runoff value was predicted to be approximately 7,018.9 m³. This indicates that the garden has a high value of runoff retention and substantial capacity carbon storage and sequestration.It can be concluded that private gardens and associated ecosystem services in urban landscapes can play an important role in enhancing the quality of life in cities. Therefore, an integral approach is needed where all types of green areas are planned and managed in a systematic way, so that they can provide maximum services.     

Perceptions of cultural ecosystem services of tree-based green infrastructure: A focus group participatory mapping in Zagreb,Croatia

Urban green infrastructure provides city dwellers numerous benefits. Among them, cultural ecosystem services (CES) are distinguished by being easily perceived and essential for people and their well-being. However, not all CES are equally easy to perceive, resulting with some of the CES categories being weakly explored. Research on CES also rarely considers elements of urban green infrastructure other than parks and forests. Therefore, there is a lack of research on different components of urban green infrastructure, especially tree-based, perceived in relation to CES. This paper presents the results of focus group participatory mapping implemented with citizens in the city districts of Zagreb on the perception of five selected CES categories in various types of urban green infrastructure. Our results show that participants perceived 13 different types of tree-based urban green infrastructure as providers of CES. We also distinguish patterns in the perception of CES categories and their connection with types of tree-based urban green infrastructure. Tree lines are perceived as providers of aesthetical experiences. Furthermore, forests and park forests are perceived in relation to place attachment and recreational activities, while parks are versatile and provide all explored CES. Other types that emerged as important were greenways, greenery around residential buildings and educational institutions, which provokes rethinking of a careful planning of the entire repertoire of urban green infrastructure.     

Biodiversity and environmental stressors along urban walking routes

There is increasing focus on designing liveable cities that promote walking. However, urban walking routes can expose people to adverse environmental conditions that reduce health, well-being and biodiversity. Our primary objective is to assess how urban form is associated with environmental quality, including biodiversity, for people moving through urban spaces. We assess a range of environmental conditions that influence human health and biodiversity (temperature, noise and particulate pollution) and biodiversity of three taxa (trees, butterflies and birds) along 700 m public walking routes embedded in 500 m x 500 m grid cells across three UK towns. Cells are selected using random stratification across an urbanisation intensity gradient. Walking routes in more built-up areas were noisier and hotter; noise levels further increased in areas with more industrial land-use and large roads. There was no evidence of vegetation mitigating noise or temperature, but there was some evidence that increased vegetation cover mitigated small particulate pollution. Walking routes in more built-up environments had lower butterfly, bird and native tree species richness, and reduced butterfly abundance. Large roads were associated with reduced bird species richness and increased noise was associated with reduced bird abundance. Most specific measures of vegetation in the surrounding matrix (median patch size, structural complexity at 1.5 m resolution) were not detectably associated with biodiversity along walking routes, indicating minimal beneficial spill-over. Increased garden cover in the surrounding matrix was associated with less abundant and less species-rich butterfly communities. Our results highlight considerable heterogeneity in the environmental quality of urban walking routes and pedestrians’ potential to experience biodiversity along these routes, driven by reduced quality in areas with more built cover. A greater focus is needed on mitigating adverse effects of specific features of the built environment (roads, industrial areas, noise) surrounding walking routes to enhance the co-benefits of more biodiversity and healthier conditions for pedestrians.     

Informal urban greenspace: A typology and trilingual systematic review of its role for urban residents and trends in the literature

Urban greenspace is vital in fulfilling people's nature needs. Informal urban greenspace (IGS) such as vacant lots, street or railway verges and riverbanks is an often-overlooked part of the natural urban landscape. We lack a formal definition of IGS and a comprehensive review of knowledge about IGS and its role for urban residents. This paper advances a formal definition and typology of IGS that can be applied globally. Based on this definition, a total of 65 peer-reviewed papers in English (57), Japanese (7) and German (1) were reviewed. We analyzed this literature for its temporal trends, spatial patterns, studied IGS types, methods used and key authors, and summarized the individual research papers’ findings concerning IGS. Results show IGS plays an important role for urban residents, but also highlight limitations and problems in realizing IGS’ full potential. Research papers focused on perception, preferences, value and uses of IGS. Residents could distinguish between formal and informal greenspace. They preferred a medium level of human influence in IGS. The analysis of patterns in the literature reveals: a marked increase in publications in the last 20 years; a strong geographical bias towards the USA; and a lack of multi-type IGS studies including all IGS types. Publications outside of scholarly research papers also make valuable contributions to our understanding of IGS. Our results suggest IGS is emerging as an important sub-discipline of urban greening research.     

Malaysians’ perception on the contribution of urban green spaces to the UN sustainable development goals

There are only few studies globally that have documented the linkages between urban green spaces (UGS) and sustainable development goals (SDGs). In Malaysia, there is no existing research evaluating the relationship between UGS and SDGs. In this study, we assessed Malaysians’ perception on the association between UGS and seven selected SDGs, building on existing studies that looked at importance of UGS with regards to biodiversity, health, and wellbeing outcomes in Malaysia. Using an online survey of 645 respondents across Malaysia, we tested two hypotheses: H1) perception of SDGs varies by socio-demographic factors and H2) perception of SDGs is moderated by distance to green spaces. A pre-tested structured online questionnaire was administered using a 5-point Likert scale. The data was then analysed using analysis of variance and ordinary least squares. Results show that there is an overall statistically significant difference (p < 0.001) between the sociodemographic variables and the positive perceptions of seven selected SDGs. Several sociodemographic factors (female, younger age, university education, closer to UGS, physical activities in UGS) had positive and significant relationship between UGS and SDGs perception. However, proximity to UGS did not moderate the effect of demographic factors on the attitude towards the SDGs. As Malaysia is becoming a rapidly urbanized country, we suggest developing small green spaces (e. g. pocket parks) in the vicinity of housing areas so that people will have easy access and perform physical activities for their wellbeing. At the same time these green spaces will ultimately contribute to achieving other SDGs in urban areas.     

Is virtual reality a valid tool for restorative environments research?

This study examines the validity of virtual reality for assessing the restorative quality of environments. In Study 1, participants (N = 23) visited a real natural and a real urban environment, after completing a task to induce mental fatigue (i.e., a Sudoku task). We found that perceived restorative characteristics, preference ratings, experienced pleasure and self-reported restoration were higher in a real natural environment compared to a real urban environment. Perceived restorative characteristics could predict pleasure and restoration for both the real natural and urban environments, as well as preference for the real natural environment. In Study 2, participants (N = 26) visited a virtual natural and a virtual urban environment, again following a mental fatigue induction. Findings showed that virtual simulations of a natural and urban environment elicit similar effects as real counterparts of these environments. Perceived restorative characteristics, preference, pleasure and restoration were higher in a virtual natural environment compared to a virtual urban environment. Additionally, perceived restorative characteristics could predict pleasure and restoration for both the virtual natural and urban environments, and preference for the virtual natural environment. We did not find significant differences in perceived restorative characteristics between the real and virtual butterfly garden. Moreover, similar restorative characteristics predicted preference, pleasure and restoration in the real butterfly garden and the virtual butterfly garden. These findings indicate that virtual reality can be a valid tool for restorative environments research.