The perception of walking on an urban forest path in daylight and under electric lighting

Abstract

In daylight, urban forests promote human health and well-being by offering opportunities for recreation and psychological restoration. In urban forests, electric lighting is often installed to enable recreation during the dark season. This study explored how urban residents experience walking in an urban forest in daylight compared to walking in darkness with electric lighting. Local residents participated in a field study in an urban forest in Sweden. Participants, 48 in total (n = 23 in daylight, n = 25 in electric light) engaged in structured walks along a 270-m long gravel path equipped with pole-mounted electric lighting. During the walks, the participants completed observer-based environmental assessments for visual accessibility, prospect-escape, perceived safety, perceived comfort quality of the electric light, restorative potential, and reported their intentions to choose or avoid a similar path in the future. After the structured walks, participants verbally reflected upon their experience, providing contextualised qualitative information that nuanced the assessments. Analysis of variance, with age, gender, value orientation and connectedness with nature as co-variates, revealed that most of the assessed experiences deteriorated from daylight to electric light. Despite this, mean values indicated that the urban forest path was perceived to hold a restorative potential and that the participants had an intention to choose similar paths under electric light conditions. In a public health perspective, the provision of electric light along urban forest paths close to residential areas could be favourable but must be balanced against the detrimental effects of light pollution on other species and energy use.