Urban forest park use and psychosocial outcomes: A case study in six cities across South Korea

Abstract

Urban forest parks provide a wide range of experience outcomes to visitors. However, there is too little scientifically documented knowledge of the outcomes of the use. This study was conducted to identify visitors' psychosocial outcomes from urban forest park use, and to examine whether or not the visitors' psychosocial outcomes were related to some personal variables. Structured surveys were conducted with 2292 urban forest park visitors in six cities across South Korea during the summer and autumn of 2003. Examination of park experience outcomes revealed that there were three factors of outcomes: “learning and self/other relations”, “social and self-development” and “enjoying nature”. The results also indicated that older and more highly educated visitors were more likely to rate the outcomes as important than those who were younger and less educated. There were no significant differences in the outcomes between male and female visitors.

Keywords:

• Enjoying nature
• forest recreation
• learning and self/other relations
• psychosocial outcomes
• social and self-development
• urban forest park
• visitor use

This work was supported by a Chungbuk National University Grant in 2004.