Ireland's State of the Environment Report 2024

369 Chapter 14: Environment, Health and Wellbeing 2. Positive environmental exposures – enhancing our health and wellbeing Engagement and contact with our natural environment is associated with measurable improvements in the health and wellbeing of the population – getting outdoors and using our green and blue spaces can have a multitude of benefits for our health, both physically and mentally. A growing body of evidence has pointed to the beneficial health effects of living near and engaging with natural environments, with links to improved mental health and wellbeing, physical activity levels and social interactions and reduced stress levels. Our natural environment is also capable of reducing many hazards such as noise and air pollution. A meta-analysis of cohort studies examining green spaces and mortality identified a protective effect from exposure to greenness (Rojas-Rueda et al ., 2019), and a meta-analysis of blue spaces demonstrated positive health impacts at a population level (Smith et al ., 2021). The COVID-19 pandemic transformed how people use their surrounding natural environment and gave us a renewed and increased appreciation of the nature in and environment of our local areas. With this revitalised appreciation for our local environment and societal desire for healthier living, coupled with increasing challenges associated with rising population numbers and levels of urbanisation and the need for compact growth, the drive to make our urban areas more resilient, sustainable and rich in nature-based infrastructure has never been more urgent. Spatial planning is one of the most significant ways of achieving this, in the context of both health protection and health promotion. Health-centred planning, design and management can help protect us from many of the environmental hazards we are exposed to in urban settings, such as air pollution, noise from busy roads, flooding and increased temperatures due to the urban heat island effect. Well-designed, connected and accessible spaces can help citizens to make more sustainable choices and live healthier lives by promoting active travel and physical activity and by offering a sense of community. Urban greening has become a well-established priority in international frameworks and European policy as a key contributor to sustainability. The EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030 calls on all cities with more than 20,000 inhabitants to develop urban greening plans incorporating measures from parks and gardens to green roofs and urban farms to help towns and cities grow greener in the future and provide vital benefits for physical and mental health and wellbeing (EC, 2021). The 3–30–300 rule (Figure 14.2) is an emerging concept developed by Prof Cecil Konijnendijk of the Nature Based Solutions Institute (Konijnendijk, 2023), which introduces objective benchmarks for urban areas to promote equitable nature access. It stipulates that: 3 – Everyone should be able to see at least three mature trees from their home, place of work or study. 30 – Every neighbourhood should have at least 30% tree canopy cover. 300 – In line with recommendations from the World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Office for Europe, everyone should be a maximum distance of 300 m from their nearest high-quality public green space.