Public Perceptions of the Socioeconomic Importance of Urban Green Areas in the Era of COVID-19: A Case Study of a Nationwide Survey in Greece

Antonios Kolimenakis, Alexandra D. Solomou (), Nikolaos Proutsos, Evangelia V. Avramidou, Evangelia Korakaki, Georgios Karetsos, Aimilia B. Kontogianni, Konstantinos Kontos, Christos Georgiadis, Georgios Maroulis, Eleftherios Papagiannis, Konstantinos Lagouvardos and Konstantinia Tsagkari
Additional contact information
Antonios Kolimenakis: Institute of Mediterranean Forest Ecosystems-Hellenic Agricultural Organization “DEMETER,” Terma Alkmanos, 11528 Athens, Greece
Alexandra D. Solomou: Institute of Mediterranean Forest Ecosystems-Hellenic Agricultural Organization “DEMETER,” Terma Alkmanos, 11528 Athens, Greece
Nikolaos Proutsos: Institute of Mediterranean Forest Ecosystems-Hellenic Agricultural Organization “DEMETER,” Terma Alkmanos, 11528 Athens, Greece
Evangelia V. Avramidou: Institute of Mediterranean Forest Ecosystems-Hellenic Agricultural Organization “DEMETER,” Terma Alkmanos, 11528 Athens, Greece
Evangelia Korakaki: Institute of Mediterranean Forest Ecosystems-Hellenic Agricultural Organization “DEMETER,” Terma Alkmanos, 11528 Athens, Greece
Georgios Karetsos: Institute of Mediterranean Forest Ecosystems-Hellenic Agricultural Organization “DEMETER,” Terma Alkmanos, 11528 Athens, Greece
Aimilia B. Kontogianni: Homeotech Co. Environmental Management Company, 102 Egeou Str., Kalamaria, 55133 Thessaloniki, Greece
Konstantinos Kontos: Homeotech Co. Environmental Management Company, 102 Egeou Str., Kalamaria, 55133 Thessaloniki, Greece
Christos Georgiadis: Institute of Mediterranean Forest Ecosystems-Hellenic Agricultural Organization “DEMETER,” Terma Alkmanos, 11528 Athens, Greece
Georgios Maroulis: Institute of Mediterranean Forest Ecosystems-Hellenic Agricultural Organization “DEMETER,” Terma Alkmanos, 11528 Athens, Greece
Eleftherios Papagiannis: Institute of Mediterranean Forest Ecosystems-Hellenic Agricultural Organization “DEMETER,” Terma Alkmanos, 11528 Athens, Greece
Konstantinos Lagouvardos: Institute for Environmental Research and Sustainable Development, National Observatory of Athens, 11810 Athens, Greece
Konstantinia Tsagkari: Institute of Mediterranean Forest Ecosystems-Hellenic Agricultural Organization “DEMETER,” Terma Alkmanos, 11528 Athens, Greece

Land, 2022, vol. 11, issue 12, 1-14

Abstract: Considering the emerging challenges posed by the spread of COVID-19, this study was designed to evaluate citizens’ perceptions of the role of urban green areas in the era of COVID-19 in Greece. The evaluation was based on the implementation of an electronic questionnaire survey through the Google Forms platform, which was conducted nationwide. The survey was conducted in 2020 and 735 responses were collected in total based on 14 structured questions. Among the key findings of the study, of notable importance is that citizens considered urban green areas as an important means of improving public health, while citizens were willing to accept an increase of EUR1 to EUR20 in their municipal taxes for improving the services offered by the urban green areas. Results indicate that in a period of both climatic and public health crises, healthy and green urban environments can play a seminal role for alleviating and mitigating different challenges and impacts, while at the same time ensuring sustainability of urban ecosystems. A certain necessity arises for investigating the socioeconomic importance of urban green areas both from an ecosystemic and public health perspective considering the novel challenges of COVID-19 to public policy and decision making.

Keywords: urban green areas; socioeconomic welfare; COVID-19 pandemic (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q15 Q2 Q24 Q28 Q5 R14 R52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/11/12/2290/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/11/12/2290/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jlands:v:11:y:2022:i:12:p:2290-:d:1002536

Access Statistics for this article

Land is currently edited by Ms. Carol Ma

More articles in Land from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().