Blue space The importance of water for preference, affect, and restorativeness ratings of natural and built scenes

Although theorists have suggested that aquatic environments or blue space might have particular restorative potential to date there is little systematic empirical research on this issue Indeed the presence of water has unintentionally been a confounding factor in research comparing people s reactions to built and natural environments Whereas aquatic features (rivers lakes coasts) are frequently present in visual stimuli representing natural environments they are rarely incorporated in stimuli portraying built environments As many towns are for good reason located near water this is a potentially significant oversight The current research collated a set of 120 photographs of natural and built scenes half of which contained aquatic elements Proportions of aquatic / green / built environments in each scene (e g 1/3rd 2/3rds) were also standardised Two studies investigated preferences (attractiveness willingness to visit and willingness to pay for a hotel room with the view) affect and perceived restorativeness ratings for these photographs As predicted both natural and built scenes containing water were associated with higher preferences greater positive affect and higher perceived restorativeness than those without water Effect sizes were consistently large Intriguingly images of built environments containing water were generally rated just as positively as natural green space We propose a number of avenues for further research including exploration of the mechanisms underlying these effects (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd All rights reserved