The Effects of Visits and Types of Activities in Forests close to urban areas on the Subjective Well-being of Visitors during and after the COVID-19 Pandemic

Forests close to urban areas are vital to human well-being, as they provide several ecosystem services including outdoor activities (e.g. recreation) that are crucial for improving mental health. Our study aim is to explore ⅰ) the effect of forest activities on the subjective well-being (SWB) of visitors before, during and after COVID-19 pandemic and ⅱ) to evaluate the influence of forest patterns on SWB during and after the pandemic period. In this paper we investigate to what extent various forest activities like (leisure walking, hiking, picking mushroom, picking forest berries and hunting) and the forests appearance and diversity improve visitors' SWB and provide relief from stress, anxiety and depression. Also we examine how forest visit frequency and socio-demographic characteristics influence. This is based on data from a representative (N = 1000) nation-wide digital survey conducted in Slovakia in 2020, and repeated in 2024, to investigate the role of forest restorative effects on SWB and stress induced by the pandemic, under conditions of a strongly limited availability of mental health services, and after societal recovery from the pandemic. One-sample Wilcoxon Signed-rank Test used to assess the deviation of the observed median from the hypothetical neutral value of forest activities and forest features. Multinomial logistic regression and ordinal regression were used to examine impacts of forest activities and forest features on SWB. The results show that forests activities and their features playing the vital role for enhancing mental health and SWB, particularly after pandemic period by explained approximately13% and 23% of the variability in SWB respectively. We conclude that exposure to forest environment has positive effect on mental health and overall SWB. We recommend policy-makers to rely on these experiences and integrate into forest management practices and strategies, to safeguard the sustainability of the cultural forest ecosystems service.