Amplifying social benefits from multiple nature-based initiatives by crowdsourcing nature connectedness and wellbeing data: A proof of concept

Source abstract

Abstract In recent years, nature-based interventions (NBIs) designed to address mental wellbeing and ecological concerns have increased markedly. Yet, evaluating the efficacy of these initiatives—both as a sector and individually—often remains a challenge. In particular, despite often sharing common aims of promoting wellbeing and nature connectedness, individual initiatives are often small, fragmented, and lack the expertise that would allow for effective programme evaluation at both the sector and programme level. Fortunately, these three challenges can be easily addressed through the implementation of an evaluation tool (i.e. standardised survey and dashboard) relying upon crowdsourced data from these otherwise-fragmented initiatives. Here, we use nature connectedness data from an evaluation tool developed by Natural England as a proof-of-concept for this approach. Our illustrative findings show that by pooling data from several initiatives with common aims, the tool is able to produce useful sector-wide insights which would have been otherwise undetectable by any NBI’s individual evaluation efforts due to sample size and fragmentation. In our discussion, we (a) demonstrate how the insights from our analyses are consistent with the literature (and, therefore, indicative of success as a proof-of-concept) and (b) discuss how the tool can be enhanced and best implemented for practical benefit to individual programmes and the sector. We also provide an improved version of the standardised survey used for the present illustration in supplemental material.